NEWTON MANOR. 47 



particulars of this visitant, by no means an alarming one, are, 

 however, so well known in these parts that I need not retail 

 them here. 



A little further down the road past Newton Cottage, and in a 

 field adjoining, belonging to the next property, once took place 

 perhaps the most dreadful and pitiful proceeding which was ever 

 enacted at Swanage. There three poor men were hanged, drawn, 

 and quartered in 1685 by order of the infamous Judge Jefferys for 

 participation in Monmouth's rebellion. A flagstone in the pave- 

 ment, which may be recognised by having a square mortice hole 

 cut in the centre, marks the place, and it is said that this stone 

 held the post on which the quarters of the poor victims were hung 

 up. By a grim irony, in Judge Jefferys' usual style, the parish was 

 made to pay the expenses of the execution, and the hangman's bill 

 for the same was preserved in the church chest until some 30 or 

 40 years ago, when it disappeared, nobody knows how. 



I came to Newton about twenty-three years ago ; the house had 

 been unoccupied as a residence for some years, and was in the 

 keeping of the farm tenant. At the back of the house were the 

 farm buildings, all now cleared away and rebuilt elsewhere, except- 

 ing the old barn, now converted into this dining hall ; in front was 

 the farm yarr 1 , and the present bay window occupies the place of 

 the barn door. When first I entered this room the farmer and a 

 wool merchant were bargaining for and weighing out the wool from 

 a recently shorn flock, and the drawing-room was filled with cider 

 casks. I may here say that I afterwards built on to it the present 

 back drawing-room, whereby a fair-sized apartment was formed. 

 Bats, rats, and mice occupied the bedrooms, a colony of owls was 

 established in one of the old stone chimneys, and a swarm of bees 

 was installed in the corresponding chimney at the other end of the 

 roof. The bees and the owls have maintained their holding to this- 

 day, a family of four young owlets having made their appearance this 

 year. For the information of our entomological friends, moreover, 

 I may say that we think we possess a private breed of spiders, 

 fine, big, long-legged creatures, as active as race horses. They are 



