Bitofapilchard
The old mill.....
......now a private home. Silton Mill, Dorset.
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Silton is a village in north Dorset, situated in the Blackmore Vale four miles north west of Gillingham. The village has a population of 134 (As of 2001).
It was for many years the country residence of Sir Hugh Wyndham (1602-1684), whose memorial by the sculptor Jan van Nost is in the parish church of St Nicholas.
Two Silton superlatives are the largest church memorial in Dorset and the tree with the biggest girth in the county. This is one of the ancient oaks that marked the limits of the medieval hunting ground known as Gillingham Forest. Although it is called Wyndham’s Oak, there was a Queen Oak in the vicinity. Perhaps that is the old roadside tree at Manor Farm, or it could have been an earlier name for Wyndham’s Oak.
Just to confuse things further, Wyndham’s Oak is also the Judge’s Tree. The hollow bole is 26 feet high and it measures 38 feet around the trunk. Sir Hugh Wyndham, Justice of the Common Pleas in the time of Charles II, used to sit beneath it, contemplating his cases. He died on the job, on circuit to Norwich, in 1684. His body was brought home, and he is commemorated by a life-size statue set in an immense baroque monument, which dominates the interior of the parish church. The sculptor was John Nost from Tring in Hertfordshire. Pastoral poet William Barnes wrote in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1833 of walking across from Mere to see Wyndham’s former home: ‘A neighbour of mine, who had lived in the old house in his boyhood, remembers it as containing some fine rooms lined with carved oak wainscot, and some of the family furniture, such as silk hanging and bedsteads.’
The old mill.....
......now a private home. Silton Mill, Dorset.
---------------------
Silton is a village in north Dorset, situated in the Blackmore Vale four miles north west of Gillingham. The village has a population of 134 (As of 2001).
It was for many years the country residence of Sir Hugh Wyndham (1602-1684), whose memorial by the sculptor Jan van Nost is in the parish church of St Nicholas.
Two Silton superlatives are the largest church memorial in Dorset and the tree with the biggest girth in the county. This is one of the ancient oaks that marked the limits of the medieval hunting ground known as Gillingham Forest. Although it is called Wyndham’s Oak, there was a Queen Oak in the vicinity. Perhaps that is the old roadside tree at Manor Farm, or it could have been an earlier name for Wyndham’s Oak.
Just to confuse things further, Wyndham’s Oak is also the Judge’s Tree. The hollow bole is 26 feet high and it measures 38 feet around the trunk. Sir Hugh Wyndham, Justice of the Common Pleas in the time of Charles II, used to sit beneath it, contemplating his cases. He died on the job, on circuit to Norwich, in 1684. His body was brought home, and he is commemorated by a life-size statue set in an immense baroque monument, which dominates the interior of the parish church. The sculptor was John Nost from Tring in Hertfordshire. Pastoral poet William Barnes wrote in the Gentleman’s Magazine in 1833 of walking across from Mere to see Wyndham’s former home: ‘A neighbour of mine, who had lived in the old house in his boyhood, remembers it as containing some fine rooms lined with carved oak wainscot, and some of the family furniture, such as silk hanging and bedsteads.’