BKIDPOET HARBOUR. 163 



to the town a right previously exercised by the Crown. Be 

 that as it may, these riparian tolls were the subject of litigation 

 during many years, for the law moved slowly in those far 

 off days. 



Let me now say a little about the owners of the 

 beach and the land which lay on the eastern and western 

 sides of the river mouth. The east cliff and the adjoining 

 foreshore were parcel of the manor of Brideton, now known 

 as Burton Bradstock. The manor was among the possessions 

 of the priory of Frampton in this county, the latter being a 

 cell or conventual house under the abbey of St. Stephen at 

 Caen in Normandy, to which the priory had been granted by 

 Henry I. This grant was confirmed by Henry II., who 

 ceded to the Abbey the manor of Brideton " with all dues 

 belonging to it " ; these latter words differ from those used in 

 the same charter with respect to the manor of Northam in 

 Devon, in which case the confirmation includes " the dues 

 of the ships that come there." This difference of language 

 may have been held to be material, if not vital, when the Judges 

 examined, as we shall see, the subsequent claim of the prior 

 to take harbour dues at Brideton. The abbot of Caen, or 

 Cadomum, being non-resident in England, left his affairs 

 in the hands of his subordinate the prior, who will become a 

 familiar figure as time goes on. So much for the east side. 

 The west cliff and foreshore were parcel of the manor of 

 Symondsbury which had been held by the abbey of Cerne 

 since Anglo-Saxon days, and afterwards confirmed to that 

 house by charters of Henry II. and III. This abbot was less 

 active than his neighbour the prior in opposing the efforts 

 of the townspeople, there being only one recorded instance 

 of an unfriendly attitude towards them, and on that occasion 

 his privileges had been forcibly invaded. The title of the 

 two prelates to the land and manorial rights between the cliffs 

 is thus well established, but the position of the townsmen 

 was rather that of grain between the two mill stones of the 

 great Benedictine monasteries. As to the date when the 

 harbour first emerges from the mists of the Norman period 



