The Byzant is unique to Shaftesbury, though it resembles May Garlands carried in festivities elsewhere. As inhabitants of a hilltop town, Shastonians were long dependent on water carted up the hill from springs at its foot in Enmore Green. Some householders had – and still have – their own wells, but most would have bought their supply from a water-carrier. A great deal of beer would also have been consumed in preference to potentially impure water. The right to draw this water required ceremonial payment of an annual tribute to the Lord of the Manor of Gillingham, first mentioned in a document of 1364. On the Sunday before Ascension Day, the Mayor of Shaftesbury walked in procession down to the wells to deliver bread, a calf’s head, a cask of ale, and a pair of gloves. (Shown in Janet Swiss’s mural in Gold Hill Museum, above).

The Byzant was also handed over and then immediately returned. The origin of the name is uncertain, but a legal document of 1662 requires that a staffe or prize besome be carried. In discussing possible derivations of the name, Gordon Ewart-Dean comments that a Harry Potter broomstick makes a good base to posh up with ribbons, feathers, flowers and a few trinkets. The trinkets may have been rather more expensive plate and jewels, loaned for the event by local worthies, as the Corporation’s accounts for 1708 include two shillings paid for watching ye bezant. Other expenses at the time included new clothes for the most recently married couple in the borough, who were appointed Lord & Lady for the day. No doubt there was a festival atmosphere, with much music, dancing, dining, and drinking. The Mayor and the twelve Capital Burgesses (co-opted rather than elected) always treated themselves to a private banquet. In 1771 this cost £54.11.0., when £17.11.0. was also spent on a new Byzant. It is a reasonable assumption that this was the gilded wooden Byzant (photo above by Alan Booth) saved by Lady Theodora Grosvenor, given to the town, and now on display in the museum. In 1830 the still-unreformed Shaftesbury Corporation decided to abolish the ceremony to save money, and the last Byzant became a relic of a lost tradition, revived again this year to coincide with King Charles III’s coronation. There was a re-enactment in 2019 before the pandemic.

You are invited to join the Byzant Procession, gathering outside the Town Hall from 10.45a.m. for an 11.00a.m. start. Vaguely medieval or Tudor costume welcome, but not compulsory. You can choose a costume to hire from a selection at the museum. On the day, look out for the seven silver pennies!

Further details of the event from Elaine Barratt at chairman@goldhillmuseum.org.uk

On 03 September 1651 the mainly Scottish army of the 21 year-old Charles II was defeated at Worcester. The young king, whose father Charles I had been executed in 1649, was now the most wanted man in England, with a £1000 price tag on his head. He spent the daylight hours of 06 September hiding in the branches of the original Royal Oak at Boscobel, while Parliamentary troopers searched for him below. On Tuesday 04 April at 2.30pm at Gold Hill Museum Paul Cordle tells the gripping story of Charles’s haphazard flight after the battle, which, full of near-misses and narrow squeaks, brought him through south Somerset, west Dorset, and south Wiltshire. After six weeks of living on his nerves and thinking on his feet, Charles finally found a boat to France at Shoreham in West Sussex. Paul’s illustrated talk is free to members of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society and open to members of the public on payment of £3 at the door.

Charles had no preconceived escape plan. He had no intention of following a beaten army back to Scotland, and thought his best chance of survival lay in the fewest people being aware of his presence and intentions. The only senior Royalist who stayed with him, Henry Viscount Wilmot, was something of a liability, in that he insisted on riding everywhere and declined to change his appearance. As Charles told Samuel Pepys in 1680, I tooke care not to keepe (Wilmot) with me, but sent him a little before or left to come after me.

By the time Charles took refuge in the Royal Oak, his hair had been cut short, his face and hands stained dark, and his clothes dumped for a Country-Fellowes habbit, with a pair of ordinary grey Cloath Britches, a Leathern Dublett and a greene Jerkin. He did not look like his 1653 portrait (above), painted during his exile in France. Nevertheless, he was in constant danger of being recognised – not least because of his height (“over two yards high”) – and he had to use his wits to persuade the suspicious that they had met him in other, plausible circumstances. Some of the best advice and practical assistance came from Catholic Royalists. They were accustomed to being careful what they said, and the more affluent had built concealed priest holes into their houses. But anyone who helped the fugitive king was putting life and property at risk.

A brief foray on foot revealed that crossing the River Severn into Wales was too dangerous a proposition. The opportunity arose for Charles to masquerade as Will Jackson, servant to Mrs Jane Lane, who already had a pass to visit her pregnant friend Mrs Norton at Abbots Leigh near Bristol. Jane rode pillion to the king, and again when they moved on to Colonel Francis Wyndham’s house at Trent in Dorset, once they had learned that there would be no ships leaving Bristol for France for a month.

In all Charles spent 19 days at Trent, where he may have felt safer after the maid of the House (who knew me) told me that there was a Rogue a Trooper come out of Cromwell’s Army that was telling the people that he had killed me, and that was my Buffe-Coate which he had then on. Upon which most of the Villiage being Fanatiks, they were ringing the Bells and making a Bone-Fyer for joy of it.

‘Will Jackson’ had a new pillion passenger, Mrs Juliana Coningsby, when as part of a pretend runaway marriage party they rode to Charmouth to await a summons to a ship in Lyme. They were let down and returned to Trent via Bridport, where they Rodd directly into the best Inn of the place and found the Yard very full of soldiers. I alighted, and taking the Horses thought it the best way to goe blundering in among them, and lead them through the middle of the Soldiers into the Stable, Which I did and they were very angry with me for my rudeness. And as the Ostler was helping me to feed the Horses, Sure, Sir (Sayes the Ostler) I know your face. Which was noe very pleasant Question to me. The king was able to convince the Ostler that their paths had crossed in Exeter, where Charles said that he had been servant to a merchant, Mr Potter, whom he knew to exist.

On 06 October the king, still playing the role of Will Jackson, carried Mrs Coningsby from Trent to Heale House near Salisbury, via Wincanton and the George Inn at Mere. As this is a journey of at least 43 miles there would need to be breaks for food and perhaps a change of horses.

The following day, for the benefit of any prying eyes, he rode off as far as Stonehenge, and returned to Heale at night. After five days in hiding, he headed for Shoreham, where the captain of a collier bound for Poole had agreed to a diversion to allow two impecunious merchants to collect a debt in France. On 16 October Charles and Wilmot disembarked at Fecamp in Normandy.

England’s brief flirtation with Republicanism ended in 1660. Some years after the Restoration Charles said to his heir, the future James II: Brother, I am too old to go again to my travels. James failed to take the hint and was deposed in the so-called Glorious Revolution of 1688.

By popular request, Claire Ryley and Ann Symons are repeating their presentation of black and white photographs of Edwardian Shaftesbury from the Tyler Collection at Gold Hill Museum at 2.30p.m. on Tuesday 14 February. A number of people were not able to make the first showing in December 2022 and this is another opportunity to view a series of remarkable images captured by Albert Edward Tyler between about 1899 and 1916. As ever, Claire and Ann will welcome observations from the audience about exactly what is visible on screen. This show is free and open to members of the public as well as of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society.

Even better news is that Claire and Ann are checking through many hundreds of Tyler glass negatives in the process of compiling a presentation of photographs of the surrounding villages (e.g. Ashmore, above, in 1907) in time for Shaftesbury Library’s Local History Month in May 2023. S&DHS volunteers like this Ashmore image so much that it is planned to use it in a new Gold Hill Museum Guide, currently in preparation. The Museum has lacked a Souvenir Guide ever since it re-opened in 2011.

As Ann points out, many of Tyler’s photographs show evidence of careful planning and artful arrangement. There are at least 30 children on the ice, well spaced out so that they are safer but also all clearly in view. Presumably that guarantees more sales of the final print. On the far side of the pond, there are men attending three horse-drawn carts, one with an enormous load of timber requiring three horses to draw it. This is a recognisable view of a well-known Dorset landmark, but it is showing a different world.

Dr James Ross, biographer of Henry VI, assesses the claim that Henry was “England’s Worst King” at 2.30p.m. at Gold Hill Museum, Shaftesbury, on Tuesday 10 January. Henry died in the Tower of London in May 1471, probably murdered on the orders of his Yorkist rival, King Edward IV. Henry was taken to Chertsey Abbey in Surrey to be buried …. not an appropriate burial site for a monarch: it was intended, presumably, to ensure his memory faded in this obscure abbey. If so, it failed. A cult to the king was already well established within two years of his death. (Ross, “Henry VI: A Good, Simple and Innocent Man”, p98)

In 1480 Edward tried to impose a ban on those “in going of Pilgrimage to King Henry” at Chertsey. In 1484 Richard III admitted defeat and had Henry moved to St George’s Chapel, Windsor, where he still lies opposite his Nemesis, Edward. Metal badges were made of Henry for pilgrims to buy. Almost 400 have been found, some in France. Henry’s nephew, Henry Tudor, pressed the Pope unsuccessfully on more than one occasion to canonise his uncle, who was credited with performing a total of 368 miracles posthumously. Some of these were quite local.

On 07 February 1486 Alice Newnett of Mere in Wiltshire apparently died of the plague. After a priest had administered the last rites, her grieving mother sewed Alice into her shroud, and the body lay for two hours on the ground. Suddenly Alice sat bolt upright. According to her, she had seen a vision of a holy man in dark silk and a gold crown, who promised to restore her to life on two conditions: one, that she lay in her shroud until he told her to rise; the other, that she make a wax candle as tall as she was and deliver it to the tomb of King Henry VI at Windsor. (Lauren Johnson, BBC History Magazine, February 2021)

Richard Beys, the victim of a profound miscarriage of justice, was hanged at Salisbury on 23 February 1484. He too had a vision of a tall figure royally dressed in a blue velvet gown, accompanied by the Virgin Mary. While Mary held up Beys’s body with her hands under his feet, the grey-haired royal figure had slipped his hand between the noose and Beys’s neck, thus preserving him from strangulation …. Beys travelled to Henry’s tomb to report his miracle and give thanks, leaving there the noose that had hanged him. (Lauren Johnson, “Shadow King: the Life and Death of Henry VI”, p546)

Dr Ross’s talk is free to members of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society and open to the public on payment of £3 at the door.

In October 1899 Shaftesbury Council built a temporary grandstand, capacity 800, opposite the Town Hall in anticipation of a Royal Visit. The streets were festooned with bunting, and a competition was held to encourage householders to add to the blaze of colour. They needed little encouragement, as patriotic fervour was at its height in the early days of the Second Boer War in South Africa. People flooded into the town from far and wide. Prime positions were reserved for local dignitaries, such as Lord Stalbridge of the Grosvenor family who owned most of Shaftesbury until 1919; the vinegar tycoon Mark Hanbury Beaufoy ; and the Mayors of Shaftesbury and Blandford. In the event, the Royal Visit lasted just seven minutes.

The royal visitor, Edward Prince of Wales, had arrived in Dorset at Shillingstone Station on the old Somerset & Dorset line, to join a three-day shooting party at nearby Iwerne Minster. He was the guest of Lord and Lady Wolverton, George Grenfell and Georgiana Maria Glyn. The Glyns were part of a banking dynasty, and, until he succeeded to the Wolverton title, George was Liberal MP for Shaftesbury, 1857-73. In 1878 he employed perhaps the leading Victorian Gothic Revival architect, Alfred Waterhouse, whose work includes Manchester Town Hall and the Natural History Museum, to build a splendid country house. The Prince of Wales became a frequent visitor, continuing later as King, and after the house had passed into the hands of the Ismays, owners of the White Star Line and ‘Titanic.’ This explains why Shillingstone, a modest country station, boasts a rather grand canopy.

Thanks to Press reports unearthed by Hilltop History broadcaster Dave Hardiman, we have been able to place the Tyler photograph, still displayed above the stairs in Shaftesbury Town Hall, in its historical context. According to the (highly deferential) reporting, the Prince had decided to return to London two hours earlier than planned doubtless owing to the troubled condition of state affairs. It’s true that the Boer War was going badly, and perhaps Queen Victoria in her advanced years had allowed Edward rather more access to government business. However, Edward was a notorious playboy, with more than 50 mistresses during a lifetime of over-indulgence. In 1901 his waistline reached 48 inches, and in 1898 he began a relationship with the Edwardian beauty Alice Keppel (1868-1947), great-grandmother of the current Queen Consort. In spite, or perhaps because, of this reputation, he seems to have been genuinely popular. There was a continuous demonstration of loyal affection from Iwerne to Semley Station, but at Shaftesbury the inhabitants quite excelled themselves in their efforts to do honour to His Royal Highness.

Two bands played the royal procession into the town. Shaftesbury Town Band were resplendent in new uniforms, while the 1st Battalion of the Dorset Volunteers provided both a military band and a 100-strong guard of honour, drawn up in front of the Town Hall. Accompanying the Prince in his carriage were the Wolvertons and the twenty-year-old Grand Duke Michael, who was the first of the Russian Royal Family to be murdered by the Bolsheviks in 1918. Conspicuous by her absence was the much-loved Princess of Wales, Alexandra of Denmark. There can have been no time to alight, or for formal speeches; instead, printed addresses and handshakes were exchanged. After seven minutes the cavalcade moved off to Semley Station, where the 10.20 Exeter to Waterloo express made an unscheduled stop.

The inhabitants of Shaftesbury managed to fill the rest of their special day with a football match played on the cricket field, which visitors Fordingbridge Turks won 2-0, and a great deal of celebratory dining. The day’s proceedings which will be long remembered by all who witnessed them, terminated with a magnificent pyrotechnic display in the cricket field.

Claire Ryley and Ann Symons look forward to observations from the audience about other images from the Tyler Collection at 2.30 on 06 December at Gold Hill Museum. This presentation is free to members of The Shaftesbury & District Historical Society, while non-members may pay £3 at the door.