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Great Heath
Wool is part of the Great Heath. It has a fine 15th century bridge across the Frome with massive cutwaters and deep recesses for walkers, still to this day you can read the sign warning of transportation for anyone found damaging the bridge.
Close by the bridge is Woolbridge Manor, a fine 17th century gabled Manor House which was the old seat of the Turbervilles.
It is to this manor house that Thomas Hardy brought Tess to spend her tragic honeymoon.
The Phantom Coach of the Turbervilles
The story goes that in the reign of James 1, John Turberville, Esq. eloped in a carriage and four with Lady Anne Howard, daughter of Viscount Bindon.
That is all there is to the story but popular tradition is associated with a spectral coach and four horses that drives from Wool Bridge House in the gloom of the evening and makes its way with great pace towards Bindon Abbey.
It is alleged that no one can see the coach unless they have Turberville blood in their veins.
The following is an alleged true story:
Many years ago a Wool Clergyman invited a gentleman from Wiltshire to stay with him.
His visitor, who arrived late on a dark night in December, had driven from Wareham in his carriage. When he reached his host’s house he asked whether any of the neighbouring gentry had a coach and four.“Why no,” replied his host. “ No one in the whole neighbourhood has a coach and four in these days.”
“Well, somebody must have,” said the Wiltshire gentleman, “because when coming to you in my carriage I saw an old fashioned four-in-hand with out-riders being driven at a great rate. To whom does it belong?”
The Parson looked at him curiously. “No one round here has such a coach ,” he said. “you surely must have seen the Turberville coach. But there’s an old story connected with it that no one possible can see this Turberville coach unless he has the family blood in his veins.” “In the reign of James1 my ancestor, Phillip married Margaret Turberville, niece of the old Squire of Woolbridge,” replied the guest to his host’s astonishment.
Bindon Abbey
Nearby, on the river bank, guarded by a lodge with great wooden doors, are the ruins of Bindon Abbey.
The abbey was the seat of a Cistercian monastery founded in 1172 by Roger Newburgh. Originally in had stood at Little Bindon on the east side of Lulworth Cove, founded by William de Glaston in 1149.
The abbey was demolished in 1539 soon after the Dissolution of the Monasteries by Henry VIII.
Only a few fragments of the walls remain, much of the stone was taken away to build Lulworth Castle. The quantity of materials must have been immense for the church alone was 170 feet long. With a plan it is easy to distinguish the various parts of the abbey. There is the monk’s parlour with the stump of three pillars, these must have held up the roof, the chapter house with pillars in its walls and seven ancient coffin lids in the floor, the sacristy leading to the great abbey church. Here in the transept is the gravestone of an abbot laid to rest over 600 years ago.
Near the east end of the church is that same stone coffin in which Angel Clare , who came walking in his sleep, laid Tess of the d’Urbervilles.
A little bridge crosses the moat and leads to the cemetery in which the old monks lie, a leafy enclosure with a big mound in which is the entrance to an underground passage. Legend has it that the tunnel was built between the Abbey grounds and Woolbridge Manor at the time of the Civil Wars. Close by is a house called Bindon Abbey, rebuilt from the ruins by Thomas Weld in the late 18th century to provide a retreat, particularly when the castle was open to the public on Wednesday afternoons.
Holy Rood Church
The village church, where the Turbervilles from the great house were buried, has a 15th century tower, two 13th century arches in the nave, and a rare elegant triple church arch of the same age. The font, built against a pillar, is 500 years old and a very beautiful chalice is Elizabethan bearing the date 1571. Belonging to the church, but now preserved in Dorchester Museum, is a medieval altar cloth, believed to have been made from vestments of the monks of Bindon Abbey. It is richly embroidered and has figures of St Bartholomew, St Helen and Moses Dorchester museum also has the 13th century bronze seal of the Abbey. On the west wall of the tower are two buttresses. The right one has in it a scratch dial set about 6 feet from the ground. They were usually on a south facing wall but being upside down shows that the stone was removed from the south wall and rebuilt into the buttress. In medieval times it would have been used to mark the times of the services. This one is quite typical of many; about 6 inches in diameter with a central hole and lines radiating from it. Prayers would have been said on the third, sixth and ninth hour of the day.
The first hour would have been sunrise and the twelfth hour sunset. Therefore, each line represented the third, sixth and ninth hours , when the pointer, which was set in the hole, cast a shadow over one of the lines the incumbent or sexton would ring a bell so everyone would know the time of the day. Although the church now stands on the edge of the village, it was not always so. Church lane was once a busy road. A hundred yards past the church the road forked, one road to East Stoke, another through Woodstreet and into Purbeck, another to Coombe Keynes running parallel to the present road sone quarter of a mile to the east.
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