TARRANT VALLEY. 



li. 



SECOND SUMMER MEETING. 

 VISIT TO THE TARRANT VALLEY, JULY 27iH. 



THE SECOND SUMMER MEEING of 1909 will be remembered 

 in the history of the Club as having been held on one of the 

 wettest days on record. Nevertheless, a- party numbering nearly 

 70 assembled at Blandford for the journey along the valley of 

 the Tarrant, a little tributary of the Stour. The itinerary 

 included "Crawford Castle " and seven "Tarrant" villages. 



CRAWFORD CASTLE, 



or Spettisbury Rings, was first visited. As it was pointed out 

 by the ASSISTANT SECRETARY, this earthwork belongs to the 

 " promontory-fort " class. At the time when the railway was 

 carried through the camp some 80 skeletons were dug up, several 

 having broken skulls. 



TARRANT CRAWFORD : ITS CHURCH AND ABBEY. 



At Tarrant Crawford Church the 

 party was met by the RECTOR (the 

 Rev. P. B. Wingate), who read a 

 paper on the history of the Cister- 

 cian nunnery founded at this place 

 in the reign of Henry I. by Ralph 

 de Kohaynes, lord of the neigh- 

 bouring manor of Keynston. This 

 house was an abbey,* and two other 

 Cistercian communities existed in 

 Dorset for monks the abbeys of 

 Bindon and Forde. 



la a very dry season foundations could 

 still be traced near the river, but nothing 



* Dom Gasquet is evidently wrong in calling it a Priory in his list of Religious 

 Houses. [Ed.] 



