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The Formation of Chesil Beach and the Fleet; The Geology of Wyke; Fossils in Wyke.

Some 12,000 years ago, towards the end of the last Ice Age, the climate improved, the sea level rose and Wyke Regis and its close surrounds gradually assumed the familiar triangular shape that we know today. To the East and South it is bounded by the waters of Weymouth Bay and the "Portland Roads" - to the West lies the shallow Fleet Lagoon and the remote and mysterious Chesil Beach, with the wide expanse of Lyme Bay stretching away into the distance.

Chesil Beach - a "narrow thread of land" as Thomas Hardy described it - curves gracefully away from Portland towards Abbotsbury and beyond, a total of some eighteen miles. It is the only barrier that keeps Wyke Regis and the rest of South Dorset from being swept away by the wild Atlantic seas that sometimes roll into Lyme Bay.

Chesil Beach (from the Old English word cisel - `shingle’) is formally described as a linear ridge of pebbles - one of the five largest shingle beaches in Britain. According to local geographer Geo. Poole its remarkable formation began during the last Ice Age. Then the English Channel and Lyme Bay was a dry valley containing large quantities of rock debris that had been carried there from the surrounding rivers during the brief summers.

As the sea level gradually rose this debris was pushed inshore by the most dominant wave force, which was from the south-west. The debris moved until it was trapped by the hard limestone protrusion of Portland. As it piled up in the eastern part of the Bay so Chesil Beach slowly assumed its present shape.

In geomorphologic terms Chesil Beach is known as a tombola - pebbles that have been size-graded all along the beach. The smallest stones are the pea-gravels found at West Bay and the largest are the cobbles at Chiswell. It is said that Wyke fishermen of old, forced to land on the Beach in thick fog, could always tell their precise position by the size of the pebbles. The pebbles are of many different kinds, derived from a great variety of sources, with flint being the predominant material.

Behind the Chesil Beach is the shallow Fleet Lagoon - or Littlesea as it is often called by Wykeites. The name Fleet comes from the Old English word Fleot that means "an estuary or inlet". It stretches from its narrow connection with Portland Harbour at "Passage" or "Smallmouth" (Ferrybridge) some eight miles up to the famous Swannery at Abbotsbury. Don Moxom, the Warden of the Fleet and Chesil Beach Nature Reserve, writes that recent research indicates that the Fleet was formed several thousand years after the Chesil Beach - as the sea reached its final level the water seeped over the low lying land to the East of Portland and flooded along behind Chesil Beach.

It was, of course, long before the last Ice Age that the basic rock formations and erosion features of Wyke Regis were laid down. Almost 200 million years ago (the Jurassic Period) the land that eventually became South Dorset was at the bottom of a shallow sea that was constantly changing. It was during the first part of this period that the waters became muddy, resulting in a band of Oxford Clay being deposited. This stretches from the shores of the Fleet across Wyke Regis to the River Wey, then on to Melcome Regis, Lodmoor and Preston.

Next came a shorter period of clear waters, which saw the deposition of the Corallian (coral) limestone that runs from the shores of the Fleet across Wyke (forming the hilly ridge of Wyke Road etc.) to emerge at the shores of Portland Harbour (from the cliffs at Sandsfoot Castle round to Nothe Point). Then came a further period of muddy waters that resulted in the formation of the Kimmeridge Clay at Ferrybridge. It was towards the end of this Jurassic Period that the shallow seas became warmer and clearer and the great beds of Portland limestone were laid down.

Fossils provide important evidence of the type of environment that existed when the various strata of clays, sands and rocks were laid down. The Corallian Beds of Wyke Regis do not contain the larger and better known fossils because it is believed that the seas were never clear enough or lasted for long enough. However, there are a considerable number of the smaller varieties of fossils that can be identified by an observant resident walking the shoreline and low cliffs of the Fleet and Portland Harbour. In the sticky Oxford Clay at Littlesea Cove there are numerous rust coloured lumps which, on close examination, will reveal fossil casts with glamorous names such as Modiola bipartita, Thracia depressa and the ribbed oyster Lopha gregarea (see illustrations).

The rocky Corallian deposits are best seen and studied at the exposed face of the low cliffs that run along the shores of the Fleet from Camp Road towards Portland. Although the rock was formed during a period when Wyke was covered by clear shallow water, there were still two brief returns to muddy water conditions. This resulted in the Corallian beds being interleaved with layers of clays and sands. In the first brief return to muddy water conditions the so called Nothe Clay was formed which contains the rounded Gryphaea dilatata fossil of the earlier Oxford Clay times. At the second return the Sandsfoot Clays were deposited but they now contain the flatter oyster, Ostrea delta. The cliffs along the Fleet are tilted and slope gently towards Pirates Bay where there is some 15 metres of Osmington Oolite revealed containing the fossil Trigonia clavellata.

In the bay where the field called Elveroakes Bottom (see drawing in Chapter two) runs down to the shore of the Fleet there is a Ringstead coral bed discernible, with the grey Kimmeridge Clay deposits becoming visible further along the shoreline towards Ferrybridge. The Ringstead Coral bed marks the top of the third cycle of shallow water and is rich in serpulids, pectens and sea urchin spines. Ammonites also reappear and commonest among the weathered specimens on the shore are the corrugated heavy shells of the pecten Ctenostreon proboscideum.

On the Portland Harbour side of Wyke, in the cliffs beneath Sandsfoot Castle, are the best exposures in Dorset of what are known as Sandsfoot Grits. They are not easy to study because of the fallen debris from the Castle and because some of the grit beds pass into clays as they are traced under the headland. The blue-brown clays contrast sharply with the rough gingery and red-brown grits, which have jubles of large Y-shaped burrows all through the blocks. On the Sandsfoot Beach side of the headland the most common fossils are the heavily ribbed Ctenostreon proboscideum, along with the long narrow local oyster named Pinna sandsfootensis, which weathers grey amidst the red-brown grits.

The Stone Age; The Bronze Age; The Iron Age; The Romans; The Saxons; Wyke and The Culliford Tree Hundred; Wyke’s Saxon Charter; The Church at Winchester; Domesday Book; Wyke Fair; The Early Court Leet; Account Rolls of 1242; From the Earl of Gloucester to the Lords of Ilchester; The Black Death.

By about 8000BC the climate in Dorset was beginning to approximate to that of the present day and forest and woody scrubs were spreading across the landscape. Bands of Stone Age hunters moved around the shores of the Fleet and they would have set up temporary settlements in Wyke to be within easy reach of shellfish and sea birds. We know this because rudimentary Stone Age bone spears and stone hand axes have been found along the shores of the Fleet.

With the arrival of bronze as a material around 18OOBC life became more settled in Dorset. People in Wyke would have lived in simple huts and carried out some rudimentary farming. Two sites of burial mounds (barrows) believed to date from this period are shown on the Old Inclosures Map of 1797. They were in the vicinity of Camp Road with one being at Overlands/North Road and one being adjacent to what is still called Barrow Rise.

The first was destroyed when the housing estate at North Road was constructed in 1937. Long-time Wyke resident W.C.Cooke recalled in his memories of Green Lane (Camp Road) that during the building of the houses at North Road a stone coffin was found containing human remains dating back to pre-roman times. At the same time in several other places quantities of shells were found well underground which would seem to indicate kitchen middens of an early date.....all these finds were on the North side of the lane.

The second barrow was in the area known as Barrow Rise. Because of its very prominent position Barrow Rise was for centuries used by villagers as a look-out to provide warnings of shipwrecks on Chesil and fish shoals in Lyme Bay. The barrow was either bulldozed by the Army in 1939 to provide a site for a war time gun emplacement or was destroyed when the houses at Westhill Close were built.

More recently a Bronze Age spear head dating from 1400-1200BC was found by Wyke resident Geoffrey Wills beneath the low cliffs between Sandsfoot Castle and Ferrybridge.

By around 500BC a Celtic tribe called the Durotriges occupied an area considerably larger than the present day Dorset. They constructed the huge hill top fortification at Maiden Castle - the best of all prehistoric forts in Britain. It was likened by Thomas Hardy to "an enormous many-limbed organism of an antediluvian time, lying lifeless and covered with a thin green cloth". The Durotriges also constructed fortifications on the summit of Verne Hill on Portland. The County name of Dorset is of course derived from the name Durotriges.

It is quite possible that the area in Wyke called Barrow Rise may also have been a simple Celtic fortification. This high piece of land was much larger than we usually associate with barrows or burial mounds and it is quite probably a natural formation.

On the Old Inclosures Map the site is called "Burrow" which might be a corruption of the Old English "burh", meaning a fortified place. W. C. Cooke recalled that no artefacts were discovered in 1939 during the excavations for the gun emplacement to support the theory that this was an ancient burial mound.

Additionally, two of the fields alongside Camp Road are called East Burden and West Burden on the Old Inclosures Map. "Burden" could be a corruption of the Old English word "burh-tun" meaning a fortified farm or a farm near a fortification.

The name of Wyke itself is generally accepted as being derived from an Old English word meaning "the dairy farm". All this evidence could therefore suggest that the prominent site we now call Barrow Rise was a pre-Roman fortified earth works built to protect the nearby dairy farm.

The Inclosures Map does indicate a barrow in this area but it was located where the houses of Westhill Close are now sited.

Maiden Castle was the commercial centre of the Durotriges, trading in new materials such iron, along with bronze, stone and Kimmeridge shale (for bracelets). These goods were traded for agrarian produce from outlying farms in places like Wyke, which would have had a few Iron Age farming families living in circular huts with thatched roofs - probably in the area of the present High Street near the Albert Inn. This location would have been sheltered by "the west hill" and "barrow rise" from the prevailing westerly winds sweeping in across Lyme Bay. The small rectangular fields of their farms would have dotted the landscape and Oxen would have been their principal beasts of burden.

These Wyke people must also have produced and traded in salt, because in 1960 Susan Palmer of London (well known for her excavations on Portland) discovered evidence of pottery and salt workings dating from the Iron Age on the shore of the Fleet, at what is now called Pirates Bay. The site was excavated by members of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society and identified as an Iron Age B salt pan working, dating to sometime in the first half of the first century BC.

From 43AD onwards the way of life for the inhabitants of Dorset was rudely interrupted by the Roman 2nd Augustan Legion under Vespasian (a future Roman Emperor) who advanced from Wareham to overcome the Durotriges at Maiden Castle. The Romans founded a major settlement at Durnovaria (Dorchester) and spread out into the surrounding countryside, settling heavily on Portland.

Evidence that the Romans lived and died in Wyke Regis all those many centuries ago first became known in 1858. Then a labourer digging in the Glebe (Church) Fields on the sloping hillside above All Saints Church (Church Nap) discovered several large, flat stones accompanied by a small black beaker - it turned out to be a Romano-British grave.

The first reservoir for Wyke was built in 1900 at Church Nap. When it was being extended in 1937 several more Romano-British graves were discovered as well as a Roman coin of Faustina, wife of Antonius Pius, Emperor from 138 to 161 AD.

Mr. C.R.Domoney records in his book about Wyke Regis and its Church that when the foundations of the bridge at Ferrybridge were being built there was evidence that a building of Roman origin or Roman influence once stood there. Again this ties in with the evidence that the Romans settled in considerable numbers on Portland and must have often traversed the "Passage" to Portland.

By the beginning of the 5th Century the Roman Empire was in retreat and the Legions were being withdrawn. Dorset was left undefended and despite stout resistance by the native Britons (Celts) it was invaded by the Angles and Saxons from Europe. Eventually considerable inter-marriage took place and these peoples are considered to be the forefathers and mothers of the Dorset folk of today. The old language died out and the Dorset dialect is descended from the West Saxon speech.

By the end of the 7th Century Dorset was ruled by the Kings of Wessex whose capital was at Winchester. It was the Kings of Wessex who were converted to Christianity around 680 AD. However, within 200 hundred years their Saxon kingdom was being invaded by the fierce Danes and Vikings who terrorised Dorset. The first recorded raiders came from Hordaland in Norway and are reputed to have landed at Church Ope Cove on Portland in 787, killing the Royal Reeve from Dorchester whose job it was to identify all foreign merchants entering the kingdom. He must have rode through Wyke and crossed the "Passage" to reach Portland.

The Saxon Chronicles record that in 840 "...ealdorman Aethlhun fought with the Danes at Portland, with the men of Dorset. This earldorman was killed and the Danes held the battlefield". No doubt the people of Wyke were well aware of these attacks and they must have suffered plunder, pillage and rape like the Portlanders.

Eventually, in 878, an army of Wessex men under King Alfred (871 - 899) defeated the Danes, leaving Alfred as undisputed King of Wessex and the Lord of the Manor of Wyke. However, there were still sporadic raids and in 982 the Chronicles record that "three Viking ships came up into Dorset, and ravaged in Portland the same year".

In those days Wyke would have been a typical small Saxon village scattered around a village green. In Wyke’s case the green would have been split by the small stream that rose near where the present horse trough is located. The stream would then have meandered down the shallow valley between the fields, orchards and wooded scrub to eventually discharge into the sea between Ferrybridge and Sandsfoot Castle. Nowadays the stream is only visible from the between the Square and Collins Lane. The huts of the villagers were crude wattle and mud affairs, perhaps thatched by reeds from the shores of the Fleet. Local historian Eric Ricketts has suggested that the Saxon village area of Wyke might have been bounded by the present Chamberlaine Road, High Street, Collins Lane and Shrubbery Lane. It was on the village green that meetings were held to decide communal matters such as sowing, reaping and harvest times.

No evidence has ever been discovered to prove that a Saxon church existed in Wyke. If there was one it would probably have been constructed of wood with a thatched roof and only been large enough to house the altar and provide working space for the priest. With a dirt floor, the only illumination would have come from the doorway and perhaps a few candles.

The Saxons were mostly farmers and their main crops were cycled in large fields, with each field being divided into narrow strips. They would have shared "common land" to graze their sheep and cattle. The common lands were in the areas of Wyke Road and Broadmeadow. Some of the villagers would have spent their time fishing in the Fleet, Lyme Bay and what is now Portland Harbour.

Around 9OOAD the Kings of Wessex divided up the Shires, which were their major administrative units, into groups of settlements called "Hundreds". They were called Hundreds because they were originally based on a taxation unit of 100 hides, each hide being a unit of land sufficient to support one family. Wyke Regis became part of the Culliford Tree Hundred. Each Hundred was presided over by a Hundred Reeve on behalf of the King and regular meetings were held at some prominent local feature such as a Bronze Age barrow. For Wyke Regis the prominent feature was several miles away at the Culliford Tree Barrow, high on the Ridgeway above Coombe Valley. It must have been a long walk!

The Village Reeve from Wyke would have represent the village’s Court Leet. When the young boys of Wyke reached 12 years of age they would have been taken along to formally swear an oath of loyalty to their King.

One of King Alfred's descendant, King Ethelred II - "The Unready", a vulgarisation of "redeless" or "council-less" - was born in 966AD and reigned from 979 to 1016. It was during Ethelred's reign, in the year 988, that he granted to one of his Minister, Atsere, "…..a certain part of land in the place called by the inhabitants Wyck". The Charter, which also mentions "Porteland", describes Wyke’s boundaries as follows:-

From the West Sea to Saggeloth
From Saggeloth to Muleditch,
From Muleditch to Blackstone,
From Blackstone to Goldcroft,
From Goldcroft to Soreditche,
From Soreditch to Lodmore,
and from Lodmore to the East Sea.

As the place names suggest, the Charter described a very large area that stretched from Lyme Bay (the West Sea) around to Lodmoor and Weymouth Bay (Lodemore and the East Sea). It therefore included much of the present day Weymouth and Melcome Regis. The number of hides is not stated (a hide was around 120 acres) so it is not possible to speak with certainty of the total area. The original Charter was signed by King Ethelred and witnessed by Archbishop Dunstan, Oswald Archbishop of York, three Bishops and three Ministers.

Dorset was overrun by King Canute in 1015 but was then restored to Saxon rule by Edward the Confessor in 1042. At that time Edward had accused his mother, Emma, of adultery with the Bishop of Winchester. To prove her innocence the Queen had to undergo "Trial by Ordeal" - walking barefoot and blindfold over nine red hot plough shares in Winchester Cathedral. The church objected strongly to this harsh treatment and in atonement Edward agreed to surrender the Manor of Portland, including Wyke, to the monastery of St. Swithun’s at Winchester. This transfer was attested by Earl Harold who later became King of England.

In 1066 when William the Conqueror from Normandy defeated Harold at Hastings he assumed the Crown of England and refused to recognise many of the old grants. He declared Portland, along with Wyke, to be a Royal possession, but on the accession of Henry I, his youngest son, in 1100, the Church of St. Swithun at Winchester sued for the return of the Manor of Portland along with Wyke, Weymouth and Melcome. In 1110 its request was granted and Wyke remained as a possession of the church for the next two hundred years.

The Domesday Book was a survey ordered in 1086 by William the Conqueror to establish the extent of his kingdom’s holdings and livestock. Although Wyke is not specifically mentioned it is thought that the entry for Portland must have included "Wik and Helewill" as well as Weymouth and Melcome. They were all "held by the King". (It is not entirely clear if this was Holwell in Radipole or Elwell in Upwey. In the 1800’s Elwell was certainly referred to as a Tithing of the Manor of Wyke Regis).

However, four fishermen are mentioned at "Bridge" which is believed to have been in the vicinity of the present Little Bridge Farm off Camp Road. Before the Army Bridging Hard was built at the "narrows" of the Fleet there existed there a small natural sandy bay known locally as Locket’s Hole. It was in regular use by the fishermen of Wyke village and perhaps this area was the one used by the fishermen of the Domesday community at "Bridge".

Fairs and markets were an important and exciting part of daily life and in 1221 the Prior of St. Swithun's at Winchester gave authority for a Fair and Market to be held in Wyke. We know that its location was along Wyke Road because a Fair Cross is shown there on the 1797 Inclosures Map of Wyke. In 1880 the base and part of the upright of an ancient stone Fair Cross was found in a ditch along the Wyke Road by a Mr. Board, when he built Faircross House. The remains of the Fair Cross now stand in the garden of a house in Faircross Avenue.

The Fair and Market of Wyke were always held on Whit Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and many local traders preferred to transfer their business to the Fair for its duration so that trade would not be lost. Initially that Fair and Market were solely for business but gradually over the centuries the pleasure aspects of the Fair came to dominate. By the time of its cessation in 1875 it was solely devoted to pleasure. By then it stretched from the All Saints Church Lychgate along the Portland Road almost to Kayes Close, as well as down the Chamberlaine Road into Wyke Square.

Woodbury Fair, held some 20 miles away on a hill at Bere Regis, was very important to Wyke and this is reflected by the use of ''Woodbury Day'' in the common field and grazing regulations of the Manorial Records.

Court Leets were first held in Saxon times and they survived the Norman conquest without any great changes. In the thirteenth century the Court officers were the Steward, the Reeve, the Constable, the Haywards (officers to supervise and maintain the "Hays" or boundaries) and Jury men. Since the manor of Wyke was held by the King (the Crown) or by the Church at Winchester there was probably no single owner or family who lived in "the house" (see Account Rolls) in Wyke. As was the custom, a Steward was appointed to supervise the estate, organise its economy and maintain justice. A full account of all that happened during the year within the Manor had to be rendered to the Lord of the Manor in an annual statement called the Account Roll.

To aid the Steward in his duties the Court Leet was summoned - every three weeks in the early days but eventually only once or twice a year. The duty of the Reeve was to collect all the dues and quit rents, using either a reeve-staff or a reeve-book to record the dues paid to him. There is no evidence of the whereabouts of a Wyke reeve-staff or even a reeve-book.

However, what does still exist is a roll of parchment four feet long by eight and a half inches wide which is preserved in the Cathedral Library at Winchester. It contains the detailed Account Rolls for Wyke for the year 1242 to 1243 - one of the earliest surviving Account Rolls of any mediaeval manor.

The Hayward was responsible for gathering stray cattle and impounding them in the village Pound. He would feed the cattle and be responsible for collecting the fine before the cattle were released. The remains of one of the village Pounds can still just be recognised at the boundary wall of Manor Farm in All Saints Road.

The Jurymen, headed by a foreman of their choosing, conducted all the business of the Court Leet. They began their proceedings by a walk around the village boundaries, noting any matters that needed discussion and action. At some stage Wyke was granted a "Liberty" by the King which meant that it could also hold petty sessional courts.

There is no evidence to tell us where the early Court Leets were held in Wyke Regis but we do know that by the 1800’s they were being held at the Fisherman’s Arms on the corner of Portland Road and Chamberlaine Road. The last Court Leet of the Manor of Wyke Regis was held in 1927. Annex B is included as and example of the latter day Court proceedings.

A "Tithing" was a small ancient division of a Manor and we know of at least four Tithing in Wyke - Elwell, Southover, Northover and Inhethinge.

Because of its early association with the Cathedral at Winchester some of Wyke’s manorial records are preserved in the Cathedral Library. Perhaps the most important document is the "Early Account Rolls" of "Wik Juxta Portland'' covering the years 1242 to 1243. These Accounts, or Close Rolls, are written in Latin and were compiled for the Lord of the Manor, Prior Andrew, in the 27th year of the Reign of Henry III (1242).

The Rolls set out the income and expenditure of the Manor for the year and contain considerable detail. They cover the names of some of the inhabitants, the level of fines imposed for breaking the laws; the major yields of the Manor during the year from the sale of wool, cheese, pelts wheat, barley, oats, etc. Some of the more important aspects of life in Wyke at that time are included below.

The Reeve was called D. Bamel, whilst an Anselm Capellanus had reclaimed a piece of land from the sea at the port of Weymouth - probably at the Marsh. As the manor also received tolls from ships trading goods through the port of Weymouth it suggests that Weymouth was still administered as part of Wyke.

Salty wine from a wreck (perhaps on Chesil Beach) was sold, whilst the Prior of Winchester sent half a cask of wine to Wyke (presumably for the use of the local clergy and those running the farm). Cheese was made and sold and there were obviously close links with a church farm on Portland because a joint sale of the wool from both farms was arranged. Wheat, oats and barley were grown and sold.

Under "expenses" there are wages for the smithy, the carpenter, the hayward, a carter, two ploughmen, a shepherd, a dairywomen, a cowherd, a keeper of the lambs and a thatcher. There were costs for steel; iron and wood for the plough; for rope; for gloves; for boon-service; for shearing, threshing and winnowing; for a saddle; new locks for the barn; a barrow to carry manure; hurdles for the sheep fold; for linen and wool; and for presses to make the cheese.

Extra expenses were included to pay for fish and for three separate porpoises that were sent up to Winchester. There is mention of expenses for running "the house" from Michaelmas (September 29th) to Christmas viz. 6d for meat, 13d for fish and 4s. 6d for ale. The "house" of the 13^th century Wyke could have been a building on the site of the present Manor Farmhouse - or perhaps it was in the High Street just down from the Albert Inn where there are still local references made to "the manor house".

The Steward only visited the manor twice during the year, according to the expenses noted, and there are more references to the costs of "the house" from Easter to St. Peters Chains. There was 12d for the expenses of someone who carried a letter from the King to the Steward on two occasions.

There are numerous references to individuals who were fined for "breaking the assize of ale" (probably selling beer illegally) and others for "infringement of pasture" etc. Some of the residents of Wyke who had their names recorded for posterity because they broke the law:-

Anselm Capellanus; Henry Bossa; Peter Cooper; Osbert Petipal; Reginald Magi; Turstan Baynard; William Hayward; Robert Kada; Ralph Francis and Alice Tenstiche.

If you were a father in Wyke at that time then you would have had to pay a "marriage fine" to the Lord of the Manor (the Church) before you could give your daughter away in marriage. Angerus de Lang paid 15 pennies to give his daughter in marriage; Hugh Cola did the same; there was 2 shillings and 6 pennies from Nigellus for the like for two daughters; and 15 pennies from Thomas Hidus for the like. The tax called Heriot - the mediaeval equivalent of death duties - was paid only once in Wyke during the year.

Some idea of the acreage being farmed is gained from the information that 78 acres (as a rough guide the present open area of Markham and Little Francis is around 90 acres) were seeded with wheat, of which 66 acres was in the fields by the sea (this probably means the fields nearest the Fleet) and 12 acres were on the eastern side of the "court" (the "court" is taken to mean the manor or farm house).

Some 39 acres were seeded with barley, of which 18 acres were in the Tything of Inhethinge (location not known). Fifteen acres were near the "court" and 6 acres were in the valley (it is difficult to know where this was because several places could be described as "in the valley" - it could have been the valley based around the present High Street, or the valley off Camp Road, or Little Francis etc.). Some of the barley was used for brewing.

Some 39 acres was seeded with oats of which 20 acres were on the western side of the "court", 16 acres were towards Smalemue (Smallmouth) and 4 acres in Inhethinge. The total acreage seeded was therefore around 160 acres.

The animal stock in the Manor was one horse, 29 oxen. 11 cows, one bull, some 381 ewes, wethers and lambs, 11 yearlings and calves; 5 rams, 7 pigs and quite a few chickens.

The Account Rolls conclude by stating that cheese making began on Thursday after St. Ambrose’s day and finished at Michaelmas. The total cheeses made were 172 with 17 cheeses going for tithe (taxes), one for scything the meadow, four for use in "the house" before harvest, ten for use in "the house" at harvest and at wool; 419 were sold including the lambs wool from Portland and Wyke. There was a total of 223 great pelts and 22 were for the tithe.

Another manorial record dating from 15^th March 1264 tells us that "the close of the court (presumably the farmyard) contains in itself 3 acres…." And "….there were also "in the demesne 238 acres of arable land…..also 55 acres of meadow".

In 1307 another account of the manor of Wyke tells us that "There are almost 302 acres ….also 59 acres of meadow ……also 9 acres of meadow…..also a windmill" (thought to have been near what is now Marina Gardens).

By the time of Edward I at the end of the 13^th century the Manor of Wyke had passed from the Church at Winchester to Gilbert, Earl of Gloucester who was acting as the King’s regent. It remained in his family until the time of Edward IV (1461) when it again became Crown property. Henry VII granted it to his wife, Elizabeth of York and Henry VIII gave it in turn to his wives Catherine Howard and Catherine Parr. James I granted it to his wife Anne and after her death it became the custom to bestow the manor on various civil holders. The last of such holders were the Lords Ilchester of the Strangways Estate, which included the Swannery at Abbotsbury. Since the 17^th Century they have gradually sold off parts of the manor piecemeal and nowadays virtually all of Wyke is the property of many freeholders.

The dreaded bubonic plague, known as the Black Death, entered England in August 1348, through the Dorset port of Melcome Regis. Whole villages were wiped out and it is estimated that some 50% of the population perished. The Dorset Lay Subsidy Roll of 1332 contained some 31 names of residents of Wyke and it can only be conjectured how many of them and their families survived. The fate of the incumbent of Wyke Church at that time - one Welter de Shrye - is not known. Perhaps it is significant that a new priest, William Staunton, was appointed in 1349.

Although the present All Saints Church in Wyke was not consecrated until 1455, a "Church of Wyke" is referred to in the records at Winchester as early as January 1172. Then Henry, Bishop of Winchester, effectively directed that one of the chapels in the church of Wyke should be assigned for the anniversary of founders and benefactors. We can infer from this that a Norman church must have existed in Wyke at that time. This is not unusual because by the time of the Domesday Book in 1086 almost every English village had its own church. There would also have been a Priest who would have been given a grant of land (Glebe land) and would also have been expected to act as the village schoolmaster. This Norman church may have replaced an earlier Saxon church in Wyke.

There is strong circumstantial evidence that the Norman church was pulled down around 1260 and a building in the "Early English" style - with pointed arches instead of the rounded Norman ones - was erected. It was common practice in those days to use some of the existing masonry when churches were rebuilt and some of the masonry and stone carving from the Norman church does seem to have been used for the new church.

The new church also served the tiny port of Weymouth as well as the large manor of Wyke Regis. It was the "mother" church of Weymouth, just as St. Anne’s at Radipole was the "mother" church for Melcome Regis - and it meant that the people of Weymouth had to make the long walk every Sunday along the track that is now Wyke Road. This resulted in their homes being left unattended and undefended and French pirates would take the opportunity to raid the houses.

This situation continued for many years but after the French had raided Weymouth in 1376 a small Chapel of Ease was built on the hill (Chapelhay) immediately above Weymouth. The chapel was called St. Nicholas and was served by a chaplain called Anselm. During the English Civil War the Chapel was used as a fort but by the end of the war, in 1646, it was in ruins and was never rebuilt.

The records at Winchester also make reference to a church at Wyke in 1252, 1329 and 1363 and the list of incumbents go all the way back to 1263 when Nicholas Lungspe, the youngest son of the Earl of Salisbury, was presented to the living of what was probably a newly built church. Nicholas reached the rank of Bishop before he died in 1296 and in his will he left "forty shillings for the poor parishioners of Wyke" - which suggests that there were some very poor people in Wyke in those far off days.

With the county of Dorset becoming generally more prosperous as the trade in cloth and wool flourished, the port of Weymouth continuing to expand. Pressure grew for a larger church to be built at Wyke Regis to accommodate the growing number of parishioners. Eventually, between 1453 and 1455, a new larger church - the present All Saints - was built in what is now called the "Perpendicular" style.

It was probably built on the same site as the previous "Early English" style church, which was presumably pulled down. The "Perpendicular" description of the church style comes mainly from the vertical shafting in the window heads, which was found to be more convenient to accommodate the stained glass windows that were increasingly being used. It also had the advantage of being composed of more regular and mechanical designs that required less skilled craftsmen - an important factor after the Black Death of 1348 had wiped out about half the population of England.

Of course, the three styles of English Gothic architecture - Early English, Decorated and Perpendicular - are only very loose descriptions of architectural styles and they evolved and intermingled over considerable periods of time.

Nowadays All Saints Church is nationally recognised as an outstanding example of a Perpendicular style church that is virtually unaltered since its consecration in 1455. Its major features are an impressive western tower, a nave with north and south aisles, a chancel, a priest’s vestry to the north of the chancel and a south porch.

The type of stone used to build the church was brought from quarries at Upwey and Portland and it was largely worked on the spot. The window tracery is exceptionally fine and the heavy south door still retains its original heavy ply construction.

Claude Domoney, in his scholarly book about the church, suggests that money could not have been over plentiful because under the interior plastering are fragments of stonework of the previous building, corbel heads in the aisles are from earlier churches and - apart from the tower - there is no finished interior stone work of any kind. The tooling on the pillars and the window mouldings has not been cleared off. Repairs undertaken on the tower recently revealed that many oyster shells had been used as packing behind the mortar.

Mr. Domoney concluded that the corbel heads in the aisles were nearly all taken from the previous Early English church, whilst the corbel head by the north springing of the tower - that of a dog with a bone in its mouth - is probably from the much earlier 12th century Norman Church.

On the first two pillars of the nave are two stone carved heads of King Henry VI and his Queen, Margaret of Anjou, who were on the English throne in 1455 when the Church was built. The remaining nave corbels are all of the perpendicular period, carved when the church was built.

One intriguing piece of evidence concerning the previous church came to light recently with the discovery of some Early English style arches built into the ground floor walls of the Old Rectory which is immediately adjacent to All Saints Church.

It is probable that these arches were remnants of the previous church which dates them back to the 1260’s - similar to the ones in St. Anne’s Church at Radipole. Perhaps they were used as cheap building material by the builder of the Old Rectory, some of which is evidently very old because the ground floor walls are of thick Portland stone and there are some large oak beams. Interestingly, the major changes and extensions made to the Old Rectory during the Georgian period around 1800 bear all the hallmarks of James Hamilton. He was the architect of much of Weymouth’s elegant Georgian sea front buildings.

The christening font is of the same date as the church (1455) and was originally sited in the nave, midway between the south and north doors. When used for christenings both church doors were left open so that "virtues" could enter from the south side and "vices" could be banished through the north - or Devil's - side of the Church. This was the side originally reserved for the burial of criminals and suicides. In 1970 the font was moved to a newly created baptistery by the south door.

The chancel was originally enclosed by an ornate carved wooden screen stretching between the pillars by the chancel steps and also by a parclose wood screen between the choir bays on the north and south. These were removed after Henry VIII’s Reformation of 1536-39 and the chancel screen was used to construct a wooden reredos behind the High Altar. This reredos was subsequently removed and its whereabouts is unknown.

It was during the Reformation that supporters of Henry VIII probably made the marks that still deface the holy water stoop just inside the south door on the right. In mediaeval times those entering the church would have dipped their fingers into the stoup to remind themselves that they must be "pure as water is pure" and of the promise of God "to cleanse them from their sins as water cleanses their bodies". They must have been turbulent times in Wyke during the Reformation years!

There are also three piscena in the church which indicates the existence of three altars. Piscena are recesses with a drain cut into the walls through which the priest can pour the cleansing water used to wash out the sacred vessels after communion.

Processions were a very important part of mediaeval worship and a west door was constructed in the base of the tower so that a procession could move out through the west door, circle the church from north to south, and enter the south door. At some stage the west door was blocked off - presumably to cut out the cold draughts from the prevailing westerly winds.

The current priest's vestry has a hagioscope - a V-shaped slot that enables anyone kneeling in prayer on the floor of the vestry room to see the sacred elements on the altar. The vestry was once known as ''The Bones Room'' because it was the custom to store in there any bones found when digging new graves in the churchyard. In mediaeval times bodies were not buried in coffins and the graves were only some three feet deep. Wyke Church was also given to inside burials and eventually - outside and inside - the dead lay end to end and side by side. The Victorians decided to stop this practice and the church floor was covered by a layer of concrete. The contents of the Bones Room were reburied in a mass grave near the Old Rectory in 1870.

The small priest's door on the south side, nearest to the Lychgate, was to enable the priest to enter the church without passing through the crowds in the nave, which was used during the week by the people of Wyke for meetings, elections, wedding feasts and even dancing and fairs. The Lychgate was not built until 1896 - Lychgates were built at the entrance to churchyards to shelter the coffin (or lych) whilst the first part of the burial service was being held there.

The south porch also played an important part in village life, with a large part of the ceremonies of marriages and baptism being carried out there. The priest still meets the bride at the church door but that is all that is left of the old ceremony that once took place there. Offenders were tried there and school classes were even held in the porch - in his book about the history of the Church, Claude Domoney comments "…..how tough our forebears must have been to sit here on a bitter winters day, howling gale blowing, or perhaps snow whirling around them on a biting wind and laboriously con their horn books or parchment scrolls, faces, hands and feet steadily getting more numb the while and in many cases glad to do it for learning was a precious and highly valued thing.''

Inside the church, above the south door, is the impressive carved stone Tudor coat of arms of Henry VIII, which was taken from Sandsfoot Castle around 1665 when the Castle was abandoned because of erosion by the sea.

The "new" north door was only placed there in 1569 and is thus a good century younger than the original south door. It is possible that the "Ogee" arch of the new door frame came from the previous Early English church - over 100 years after it was pulled down!

One change from the original church design has taken place just under the roof of the nave and chancel where a series of clerestory windows has been bricked in.

Some of the gargoyles around the outside of the church are eye-catching, with the one on the south west corner of the tower holding a recorder-like instrument whilst the central one on the north side of the tower is of a woman with a monkey peeping over her head-dress.

There are many memorials inside the church. The painted Royal Coat of Arms on the north aisle west wall, which commemorates the restoration of Charles II in 1660, was put up in 1714 by order of George I and displayed his Coat of Arms. On his death the parsimonious church officials economised by simply adding another stroke to make it represent George II. On the accession to the throne in 1760 of George III they repeated the exercise and simply added another stroke - but unfortunately they forgot that the Coat of Arms of George III was different to that of George II. This "fiddle'' remains to this day, for all to see.

On the west wall is a tablet to Mr. Atkins, for many years the headmaster of the village church school at the corner of All Saints Road and Chamberlaine Road.

In early times many of the pew seats were allocated by the church wardens to particular individuals or families living in the Parish. Some of the pews have carved on them the badges of the 3rd Battalion Dorset Regiment, who were billeted in Wyke during the First World War.

Nicholas Lungspee 1263; William Harvey 1299
Simon de Migham 1302; Simon de Stopham 1307
William de Winterborn 1314; Simon de Moenes 1316
Uricus de Rupis 1316; William Archer 1324
Welter de Shryeborn ?; William Stanton 1349
Henry Chelford 1408; Thomas Wassayl 1445
Thomas Hall 1450; William Stoke 1453 - It was during the rectorate of William Stoke that the present church was built.
William Gifford 1467; Edmund Hampden 1469
John Baker 1476; Henry Sutten 1480
Henry Sutton M.D 1495; Benedict Dodyn 1497
William Bower 1519; Williams Medow 1531
Thomas Watson 1545; Thomas Haywood 1553
John Sprint 1574; William Garth 1576
Nicholas Jeffries 1584; Eleazer Duncomb 1631
Edward Quarles 1631; Humph. Henchman 1640 - Henchman joined the Kings forces in 1643 and Henry Way was appointed by the House of Commons to be his successor. Humphrey Henchman gave his name to the expression "henchman" - reputedly because of his firm commitment to the cause of the King.
Edward Buckler 1650; Edward Butler 1652
Edward Damer whose date of collating is not known, was deprived of the living at the restoration.
Thomas Clendon 1662; Richard Drake 1667
Robert Wishart 1681; William Hunt 1689
William Rayner 1720; Abraham Davis 1730
Michael Festin 1753; John Cutting 1765
Samuel Payne 1792; Samuel Byam 1802
George Chamberlaine; 1809 John Menzies 1837
John Thomas 1847; John Hill 1851
Henry Pigou 1855; Richard England 1882 - During the major part of England's rectorate the Parish was ministered by a curate in charge, one Thomas Bell-Salter.
Sidney Edmund Davies 1899; Edward B Thurston 1918
Ernest Pratt 1942; Philip Rigby Rounds 1967
Keith Hugo 1988 to present day.

The Rev. George Chamberlaine, the incumbent from 1809 until 1837, was responsible for the building of Holy Trinity Church at Weymouth and Chamberlaine Road in Wyke Regis is named after him.

The Church Registers date back to 1610 and the Church Wardens Accounts are almost as old. They are now in the Dorset County Records Office at Dorchester.

The Church Wardens' Accounts from 1745 to 1803 indicate how much the villagers depended on the crops they grew to survive and how determined they were to protect them from wild birds and animals. During the year of 1772 the churchwardens paid out rewards to villagers for five foxes, 12 hedgehogs, 9 dozen sparrows and two badgers. The going rate for a fox was 6 pennies, and 2 pennies for a dozen sparrow heads.

There are some fascinating headstones in the graveyards around the church and some well known local personalities have been buried there over the years. One of the most famous is the artist John William Upham who painted so many delightful scenes of Wyke and the surrounding areas in the early 1800’s. The architect William Hamilton is also buried there as is the scientific pioneer William Thompson who took the world’s first underwater photograph in the locality.

On Sunday 19th October 1455 Bishop Beauchamp of Salisbury blessed "with due solemnity" the four bells hanging in the bell tower. In 1552 the bells were confiscated by the Crown but they were gradually replaced with a treble by Warre of Salisbury in 1614, a 3rd by Purdue of Taunton in 1617, and a 2nd by Tozier of Salisbury in 1723.

In December 1799 the Archdeacon ordered the great bell (the 3rd) to be repaired but it was concluded that it would cost too much. In 1802 authorisation was given to take down the great bell so that it could be recast into a smaller one. In 1891 they were recast into the present eight bells by John Taylor. The tenor bell now weighs some three quarters of a ton and the inscription on it reads:-

"Lord may this bell forever be
A tuneful voice o’er land and sea
To call thy people unto thee".

The peal of bells was completely renovated and re-hung in 1946 as a memorial to the Rev. F. De B. Thurston. who was the Rector for nearly 25 years. In 1988 the peal was once again in desperate need of restoration and the Millennium Celebrations in the village produced over £4000 which helped towards the final amount raised of £16000. As a result the bells - recognised as one of the best in the county for quality of tone - were completely refurbished and re-hung.

In 1928 the nave was re-roofed, the design of the roof being as near as possible to the original design. At the same time the chancel was restored to its original length. In 1935 the aisles were re-roofed in natural oak, matching the new work in the nave and the organ was overhauled and modernised. The choir stalls have also been renewed in oak and the names of all those village people who lost their lives in the 1939-45 War are inscribed on one of the panels.

In the early 1990’s some £80,000 was raised by the Parochial Parish Council to repair the church tower and in 1995 £4000 was spent on an induction loop system to assist hearing aid users.

Manor Farm; Fantasy Cottage; Some Old Place Names; The Armada Beacon; Sandsfoot Castle; The English Civil War.

Manor Farm was, until recently, one of the best surviving traditional "urban" farmyards in Dorset. For many centuries it was the centre of Wyke’s ancient manorial farming system. The farmhouse itself was probably built at around the same time as the church - in the fifteenth century - and is mainly silver-white Portland Stone. The single story south wing, with very old straight-chamfered mullion windows and a finely moulded beam ceiling, is the earliest part of the building but the great stone chimney-stack in the north wall also denotes mediaeval construction. Like the farmhouse the adjacent barn was also of great antiquity

From its earliest days the farm must have been the occasional home of the Steward appointed by the Lord of the Manor, but few details have so far been discovered about its early occupiers. The clergy responsible for the nearby church may have lived in the farmhouse and helped to run the farm. Certainly the manorial records show that there were regular visits to Wyke from senior church figures.

In the early 1900s it is known that ale was brewed at the farm. The old village Pound was next to the farmyard and local historian Jacqueline Kane has suggested that at one time there was also a separate "piggs pound bounded with stones" located to the East of the High Street.

The Inclosures Map of 1797 tells us that at that time the farm and much of the land in Wyke were owned by the wealthy Arbuthnott family. Admiral of the Blue Marriot Arbuthnott died in 1794 and his son John was Governor of North Yarmouth and a Captain in the Army.

By the middle of the 1800’s the farm was being run by a Richard Keeping but in 1920 James Start bought the freehold of from The Right Honourable Walter Charles Warner, Thirteenth Viscount Arbuthnott, for a sum of £2000. The Start family had previously run the bakers shop in Wyke Square. When James Start died in 1921 the farm passed to his wife Kate and then in 1930 to her son Alfred James Start.

By then it was mainly run as a dairy farm with grazing fields alongside Camp Road at Overlands and at Burden. The farmyard pond was still there in the 1930’s but gradually dried out. James Start’s daughter, Sheila Wellspring, ran the farm for many years until in 1989 the farmhouse and the yard were sold off for housing development.

The old farmhouse has now been modernised, a new house built alongside and one of the barns has been turned into neat period terraced housing. Little remains to remind us of the old Pound except a wall plaque.

During the tasteful modernisation of the farmhouse by Dorset builders Fry and Son the walls were stripped back to the masonry. The original Tudor fireplaces from the time of Henry VIII (16^th century) were exposed in the northern mediaeval gable end on the ground floor and first floor.

Fantasy Cottage, opposite the Social Club in Chamberlaine Road, is probably the oldest cottage in Wyke, with parts of it dating back to the time of Queen Elizabeth I. It is built of blocks of Portland stone in coursed ashlar. The sash windows are 18th Century replacements for the original stone mullion casements. There is an old corbel fireplace in the north wing.

Next door is a typical Georgian cottage with narrow frontage, a good bow window and a mansard roof. As Eric Rickets remarked in his book about the buildings of Wyke Regis, they make strange but attractive bedfellows.

The Romans, Danes, and Vikings all used beacon signalling systems with a torch on a pole, as well as ground fires. This practice of using beacons to warn the populace of danger was still in use in the 16^th century. In the British Museum is an unpublished map of around 1539 showing a chain of beacons, including one at Wyke Regis (at the site now occupied by the television mast). This beacon would have been used at the time of the Spanish Armada in 1588. The Wyke Beacon would have been lit when the one to the West at Hardy’s Monument was observed to be alight. This would have been followed by the lighting of the beacon on the Nothe.

Sandsfoot Castle and Portland Castle were built for Henry VlII around 1539 as a working pair to defend the anchorage and vulnerable landing shores around the Portland Roads. They were part of a chain of sea fortifications along the South coast. Some of the stone for Sandsfoot Castle was brought across from Bindon Abbey near Wool which had been reduced to a ruin at the Reformation. There was a three storey main block and a single storey gun room to the seaward side. Unfortunately it was quickly undermined by coastal erosion and was finally abandoned around 1665.

It was said to have been manned wholly by a Militia of Wyke Men and was used by the Royalists as a mint during the English Civil War in the 1640s. Since being abandoned it has continued to decay, with the gun platform at the seaward end being eroded and falling down the cliff onto the rocks below.

Wyke’s role in the Civil War was a peripheral one as the Royalists and the Roundheads disputed the ownership of Weymouth and Melcome Regis and the Isle of Portland. The ferry at "Passage" was used by both sides to transport men to and from Portland. We also know that after their defeat at Weymouth in 1645 the Royalists troops retired to lick their wounds at Wyke - probably in the fields by the Fleet.