126 THE CHURCH BELLS OF DORSET. 



The Loughborough foundry has sent us the third at Char- 

 minster. Whitechapel and the Crescent Foundry in Cripplegate 

 are represented also in other churches, as may be seen by the 

 list of inscriptions. Those at Frampton cause a thankful 

 acknowledgment that the gift of poetry is not yet extinct. 



DOECHESTEE, Fcb. 13, 1903. 

 Mt Dear Sib, 



You ask for a note of what I have heard about certain bells at Fordington. 

 I now give it, as well as I am able. 



In 1882 the late W. (?) Kendall, then Vicar of E. Lulworth, told me that some 

 years before that time he was curate of Wool. He found that there were several 

 traditions still on the lips of his parishioners. They had a tale of a lot of red- 

 haired men coming up the river, and killing folks, and burning and wasting far 

 and wide — Danes we may believe. Again, in the time of one Cromwell there was 

 a King to every county — seemingly a dim memory of Sultan Oliver and his 

 Pashas — Desborough here in Dorset. But, to our present purpose, the Wool 

 folks liad this jingUng rhyme :— 



" Wool streams and Coombe Keynes wells — ■ 

 Fordington rogues* stole Bindon bells." 



The first line doubtless alludes to the fine spring at the west end of Wool ^-illage, 

 sending a rili of water all down the street, and to the very deep well at Coombe 

 Keynes, an adjoining parish. As to the second line, the belief was as follows : — 

 When Bindon Abbey was suppressed and looted, the bells formed no small part of 

 the plunder. Now Bindon Abbey was of the Puritan Cistercian Eule, which 

 forbade any tower to the church, and more than one bell. Such a lapse from 

 regulations had, however, taken place, that Bindon Abbey had a tower and, 

 more than that, a ring of twelve in it. I think (but T am not sure of this point) 

 that these bells were to be divided between Wool and Coombe Keynes. 

 " Fordington rogues," however, had other views. With cleverness *' worthy of 

 a better cause " they secretly earned off five of the twelve and hid them in a lane 

 near by, still called Bell Drong in 1882. When night fell they came with 

 waggons and got clear off with the bells to Fordington, where two, St. John's 

 and St. Katharine's, ling to this day. Wool had to put up with four, Coombe 

 Keynes with three of the remainder. It should be added that there was a 

 connection between Bindon Abbey and Fordington, where certain plots of ground 

 are called Cistercian lands. 



Variant " cuckolds,' 



