ABBOTSBURY 53 



they are all marked by a slit in the form of the 

 letter " I " made in the web of the foot when 

 quite young. 



It was, of course, Henry VIII. who wrested 

 Abbotsbury from the Church, and after the final 

 dissolution of the monasteries he gave the abbey 

 and lands to Giles Strangeways, knight, who out 

 of its ruins built himself a " fair mansion house," 

 where he and the Strangeways family often lived 

 till it was destroyed during the Civil Wars, and 

 with it, unhappily, the only register of the monastery 

 known to have existed, which register had been in 

 the possession of the Strangeways ever since the 

 lands became their property. 



During the Parliamentary Wars Abbotsbury was 

 stormed on November 6, 1644, by Sir Anthony 

 Ashley Cooper, who was in command of Cromwell's 

 forces in Dorset. A very interesting report written 

 by him to the Committee of the Parliament in 

 Dorsetshire, still exists, describing the storming of 

 the house which belonged to Sir John Strangeways, 

 a staunch Royalist. When the house was finally 

 taken, by being set fire to, the gunpowder magazine 

 below it blew up, killing many of the Parliamentary 

 soldiers who had entered it in search of plunder. Sir 

 Anthony in his report says of one man, "Lieutenant 

 Hill, who went a volunteer and was sent in to get 

 out the soldiers, was blown up with the rest, yet 

 since we have taken him strongly out of the 



