CalMax in England: Jurassic Coast Continued

Tyneham

24th March 2013

Tyneham is a village on the Jurassic Coast, and one that I’d hoped to visit on the 9th March, but because the village is on MoD property it is often closed to visitors. It’s actually part of a military firing range used by the Armoured Fighting Vehicles Gunnery School, and the reason why Tyneham is on an MoD firing range is in essence because the Army acquired it during World War II and never gave it back.

Cal and I visited it this time round when the range was open.

The history of the village is fascinating, and certainly worth re-counting. The Parish Church, St. Mary’s, has a time line as part of the museum that is housed there, and starts around 5000 years ago with Bronze Age burial mounds on Povington Heath, and then 400BC with an Iron Age fort and a fishing community on the cliff above Worbarrow Bay (half of which has succumbed to the sea). There is also evidence of Roman occupations in the valley, and the area was a favourite hunting ground for Saxon kings.

Spring had supposedly sprung, but somebody should tell the daffodils that it’s still too cold to be out!!!

The first historic records of the village were in the Doomesday book, which documents that Tingeham was held by William the Conqueror’s half brother Robert, Count of Mortain. The original church dates back to 1297 – around the time that Salisbury Cathedral was being built. The medieval Piscina on the right dates back to the original church and was used to hold water in which the priests washed their hands as well as the rinsings of the sacred vessels such as the chalice and paten – which were taken to Salisbury Cathedral when the village was evacuated, and are now in the Chapter House.

The Bond family has a strong link to Tyneham, and purchased the village in 1683 – before this, the Bond’s had supported Cromwell in the English Civil war. Here’s a gory tangent: In Googling the timeline for the English Civil war I noted that in 1661 Cromwell was exhumed (three years after his death, so he could be posthumously executed) and his severed decomposing head was displayed outside Westminster Hall for another 24 years - yum!

Back to Tyneham and the Bond family – what a crowd . . . In 1685 a member of the Bond family, the 70 year old Lady Alice Lisle was sentenced to be burned alive for harbouring a refugee from the Battle of Sedgemoor (an attempt to overthrow James II by his bastard half brother), but after an outcry at the sentence she was beheaded instead (just up the road is a pub called the silent woman with the pub sign bearing a picture of a headless woman cradling her head in her arms . . . a connection maybe?). But the saga continues – in 1732 Denis Bond was expelled from the House of Commons for fraud – not much changes over a couple of centu-ries. There must have been some good blood, because in the late 1700s the Bond heirs became Reverends, with Rev John followed by Rev Henry, followed by Rev Nathaniel (who established the school in the village).

Cal outside the school house - huddled against the cold

During World War I the land at Lulworth, just up the road was chosen by the War Office to test its latest invention – the tank – a factor that led to the events of World War II. During the first world war 17 men from the Tyneham Parish died in fighting – a significant number when you consider the number of people in the village.

Just before Christmas 1943, the village and 7,500 acres (30 square km) of surrounding heathland and chalk downland around the Purbeck Hills, were commandeered by the War Office (now MoD) for use as firing ranges for training troops and D-Day preparations. 252 people were displaced, but because they were tenants of Ralph Bond, the squire (who was compensated) they only received compensation for the loss of the produce in their gardens. Perhaps the saddest part about the relocation is the notice left on the church door by the last person to leave:

Please treat the church and houses with care; we have given up our homes where many of us lived for generations to help win the war to keep men free. We shall return one day and thank you for treating the village kindly.

The evacuation was supposed to be temporary for the duration of World War II, but in 1948 the Army placed a compulsory purchase order on the land and it has remained in use for military training ever since. In 1952 Ralph Bond, the last squire of Tyneham Village died, “still bitterly unreconciled to the loss of Tyneham and deeply wounded by the Government’s shab-by behaviour and broken promise to return Tyneham to him and its former inhabitants”.

The pictures below show the village as it was in the early 1900s (but at least after 1927 as there is a public phone box) and how we saw it today.

Many of the village buildings have since fallen into disrepair or have been damaged by shelling and in 1967 the then Ministry of Works pulled down the Elizabethan manor house, though the church remains intact. The church and school house have since been preserved as museums. Cal liked the fireplace in the upper story of the Shepherds cottage, but I just had to get some foliage in the picture as well ☺.

After wandering around the village, we headed down to Worbarrow Bay for a look at the coast. The 400m walk quickly turned into a mile walk to the beach. Along the way we saw a sign instructing us to keep to the path. Evidently this doesn’t apply to the sheep.

The views of the coastline were very nice, and it was good to get close to the sea (even got my boots covered when a wave came in unexpectedly. Apparently you can swim there all year round – right . . .NOT. It was a balmy 1˚C with a wind chill factor of about -5˚C. We did see some sadistic dog owners chucking sticks into the water for their dogs – only the lab was stupid enough to go get them.