William Barnes

The life of William Barnes in the Dorset landscape (22 February 1801 – 7 October 1886)

The farmer’s boy, who grew up in the countryside, is undeservedly overshadowed by the more famous Thomas Hardy, but there would be no Hardy without Barnes. The poet, writer, inventor, artist, mathematician and priest was born in 1801 at Rushay Farm, in Pentridge (not to be mixed up with Pentridge on Cranborne Chase) and has family roots embedded into the surrounding landscape.

In the south isle of the Church of Holy Rood in Buckland Newton is a brass plaque erected in memory of a Thomas Barnes, who was a wealthy ancestor of William Barnes. Thomas was a keen poet who died in 1624, only eight years after Shakespeare, passing his passion down the generations. William’s mother was a Miss Grace Scott from nearby Fifehead Neville, while his father was John Barnes, a tenant-farmer in the Blackmore Vale. His mother died when William was only five years old and so he spent a lot of his childhood with his uncle and aunt, Charles and Anne, at Pentridge Farm in Bagber. With his five brothers and one sister, as well as his cousins, they would often play in the River Stour at Cutt Mill or scare themselves with hauntings of Bagber Manor Farm. Rushay Farm was demolished sometime before 1857 and replaced with a new building while Pentridge has shrunk to little more than a lane in Bagber.

William was seen to be a delicate boy, slightly sickly and not suitable to the hard labour of farm work. Instead he was viewed as a gifted child who was much more interested in the reading of books. He finished school when he was 13 but was still keen to learn. He took on several musical instruments and read up on a wide range of subjects including philosophy, history and languages, language being a particular fascination to him. In combination with his passion for the Dorset landscape and its people he was inspired by all to create poetry, more often than not in original Dorset dialect familiar to him from his upbringing.

In 1815, at the age of 14, William got his first job as a clerk for Mr Dashwood at Vine House in Sturminster Newton. The building still stands today as a private home. Three years later he moved to Dorchester to work with the solicitors Thomas Coombs and Sons. Whilst there he saw a young Julia Miles (1805-1852) disembark the stage coach that ran from Exeter to London at the Kings Arms Hotel and swore to himself that she would be his wife. In 1822 he wrote the poem ‘The Aquatic Excursion’ all about his happy times spent with her on the banks of the River Frome. The same year, when she was 17, they got engaged but her family did not agree with the match. He set about improving himself further and in 1823 moved to Mere to work as a schoolmaster. He took his role seriously, writing up his own lesson plans, using textbooks written in his own hand, and became an inspiration. Once the school was firmly established, in 1827, William married Julia at Holy Trinity Church in Nailsea, Somerset. They settled back in Mere where together they ran the school and had three children. William also continued with his poetry, music and writing while learning Greek, Latin, Russian and Welsh amongst many other languages. His first published work was in 1834 on ‘ Mathematics as a Branch of Education, or Subject of Study’.

His passion grew as he became more concerned about the loss of Dorset’s ancient language. Dating back to the Anglo Saxons, he viewed it as linguistic purism only to be infiltrated with Greek, Latin, German and French. This was not due to any xenophobia but instead more about the common man who may not understand the new modern speech without a classical education, and so Barnes set about both preserving and celebrating Dorset’s rural speech and culture.

In 1835, home called and, as a family, they returned to Dorchester to set up a new school. It moved locations over the next few years until it found a suitable location on South Street in 1847, now Fox & Sons estate agents. Its neighbour was the architect John Hicks who in 1856, took on the young Thomas Hardy. Both Hicks and Hardy, at only 16, were interested in literature and the classics and would often call on William for discussion or advice. William took Hardy under his wing, teaching him both poetry and music, bonding over stories of folklore and magic, and became firm friends. Sadly the architect’s office was burnt down on the 9th December 2024.

In 1879, after discussion with Hardy and others, William presented the Dorset Field Club with a paper claiming the use of Leigh’s Miz Maze to be related to witches. The Miz Maze is a relic of an ancient turf maze sometimes in the shape of a labyrinth. Very few survive in the country, but several used to be in Dorset, including Pimperne, where the map of it is up on the parish church, and Troy Town, with some modern versions in Melbury Abbas, Charmouth and Hinton St Mary. They are of uncertain origin but may have been constructed as early as the 13th or 14th century and used for rituals or as a meeting place. Adding to Barnes’ claims, there are documents that still exist from 1650–1664 that state that the Miz Maze was where local witches met. The local name of Witch’s Corner on the nearby road could also be relevant. One of the last witches to be burned in England was reputed to have been arrested at a conference here in the 17th century and then executed at Maumbury Rings in Dorchester.

The 1840’s brought the railways to the county. This involved the engineer Isambard Kingdom Brunel (1806 –1859) arriving with the intention of carving a cutting through the landscape to enter the town of Dorchester. William Barnes was angered by this as is meant the destruction of the Iron Age Hillfort of Poundbury. To Brunel’s annoyance Barnes won the argument and we still have Poundbury Hillfort preserved today. During discussions with Brunel over the railway Barnes grew closer to Richard Brinsley Sheridan of Frampton. Brinsley also wanted to have a tunnel put in as the train passed north of his estate and could have ruined his rural view. Poor Brunel therefore had two tunnels to construct instead of two much easier cuttings. Brinsley was known for entertaining at Frampton Court and within the house he developed a large library filling it with manuscripts He would often play host to notable visitors such as Barnes, satirical novelist William Makepeace Thackeray and ‘Frankenstein’ author Mary Shelley, the house becoming devoted to the arts and the community. As a keen advocate for education Barnes was one of a three who founded the Dorset Museum in 1845, again something that we are still able to visit today. The other founders were Henry Moule of Fordington and Charles Bingham of Melcombe Bingham.

In 1847, Barnes became the curate of Whitcombe but continued to work at the school. He also graduated from St John’s College, Cambridge in 1851 but 1852, by his own admittance, was the worst year of his life. With financial worries of the school on his mind, Julia became ill and after 7 children (one dying in infancy) and 25 years of marriage she sadly passed away. Barnes was heartbroken, his feelings reflected in many of his poems of the time. To help with his grief he dedicated himself to family and education. In 1862 the school was closed but he found a new role as the Rector to St Peter’s Church in Winterborne Came, while still serving Whitcombe, and made his congregation his priority. He moved into The Old Rectory in Winterborne Came with his daughter, Laura, and would walk across the landscape, come rain or shine, for his sermons. His first collection of poems were published in 1844 with a second collection in 1858 and a third in 1863 which attracted attention to this slightly reclusive, teetotal, vegetarian man. Nevertheless, he entertained many at the rectory including Hardy and Lord Tennyson. His work attracted criticism with some claiming that he only saw the good in life. This could be why Hardy felt it so necessary to lean in the other direction!

The Old Rectory still stands, with some minor amendments, and was put up for sale in December 2024 for £2,750,000. William gave his first sermon here in Whitcombe in 1847, when the village consisted of 12 cottages and 50 souls but it has since disappeared into the landscape with little remaining other than earthworks. The church still stands but is redundant, its dedication forgotten. On the interior, opposite the entrance, are traces of some magical wall paintings that include a 15th century image of St Christopher and a mermaid combing her hair. The church has 12th century origins and was partly resurfaced in the 15th century. Its survival is thanks to William as the church was restored in his name. A plaque records: ‘To the Glory of God and to the memory of William Barnes, the preservation of this church was carried out AD 1912’. He continued to perform as rector both here and at Winterborne Came, giving his last sermon in 1885. The pulpit has been left exactly as it was that morning.

On 7th October 1886 William died at the Rectory and was buried in St Peters Church in Winterborne Came with an impressive Celtic stone cross. An inscription reads: ‘In Memory of William Barnes, Died 7 October 1886. Aged 86 Years. For 24 Years Rector of this Parish. This Memorial was raised to his Memory by his Children and Grandchildren.’ A bronze statue was erected in his memory in 1889 outside St Peter’s Church in Dorchester where he had once been the People’s Warden.

During his life, William travelled across the county, his experience often captured in his poems. He gushed about the bells of St Thomas a Becket Church in Lydlinch claiming ‘Vor Lydlinch bells be good vor sound, And liked by all the neighbours round’. While admiring the view from Shaftesbury to Duncliffe, over the Blackmore Vale, he wrote his ‘Shaftesbury Feair’ poem, with the extract:

‘While Paladore, on watch, do straïn
Her eyes to Blackmwore’s blue-hill’d pläin,
While Duncliffe is the traveller’s mark,
Or cloty Stour’s a-rollèn dark…’

Cattistiock was described by him as an elbow, purely due to its road layout, but another description of his has become more valuable. Silton Manor was an impressive house owned by Sir Hugh Wyndham (1603-1684). As a child, a friend of William’s visited the manor just prior to it being demolished. He returned to tell William all about its extravagance and elegance, which William then shared with the world. This description is all that remains as the manor has now disappeared with little left other than a garden wall. Barnes travelled to West Dorset where he visited his friends the Shutes-Udall family in Symmondsbury. On the coast, the daintiest and most beautiful Manor House in the county, as described by Frederick Treves, Puncknowle Manor was home to Colonel Shrapnel. He invented the shell, designed to cause damage to a devastating effect, and from where the term shrapnel derives. William visited him and occasionally helped him with his mathematical calculations. William also admired Beaminster to the north, expressing its rural beauty in another poem:

‘Sweet Be’mi’ster, that bist abound

By green an’ woody hills all around

Wi’ hedges, reachen up between

A thousan’ vields o’ zummer green.

Where elems’ lofty heads do drow

Their shades vor hay-meakers below,

An wilde hedge-flow’rs do charm the souls

O’maidens in their evenin strolls.’

Barnes does mot feature frequently in modern culture, the language he was trying to save has been lost, making his work less accessible, exactly the opposite of what he was trying to achieve. None of his work has been made into films, unlike his younger contemporary who has had numerous versions made from a number of his novels. He would have, no doubt, been delighted by the publication of PJ Harvey’s ‘Orlam’, where the story is told in both English and Dorset dialect, but he may well have been disgusted by our modern day text speak!

William Barnes’ most famous poem:

My Orcha’d in Linden Lea (1859)

Ithin the woodlands, flow’ry gleaded,

By the woak tree’s mossy moot,

The sheenen grass-bleades, timber-sheaded,

Now do quiver under voot ;

An’ birds do whissle over head,

An’ water’s bubblen in its bed,

An’ there vor me the apple tree

Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

When leaves that leately wer a-springen

Now do feade ‘ithin the copse,

An’ painted birds do hush their zingen

Up upon the timber’s tops;

An’ brown-leav’d fruit’s a turnen red,

In cloudless zunsheen, over head,

Wi’ fruit vor me, the apple tree

Do lean down low in Linden Lea.

Let other vo’k meake money vaster

In the air o’ dark-room’d towns,

I don’t dread a peevish measter;

Though noo man do heed my frowns,

I be free to goo abrode,

Or teake agean my hwomeward road

To where, vor me, the apple tree

Do lean down low in Linden Lea.