Adventure and adventurers > Black's guide to the counties of Dorset, Devon, & Cornwall

FROM YEOVIL TO SALISBURY.
Route 4.
cold spring. The view from the summit is delightful, but the
ascent is not easy.
At 8£ miles from Hentsridge Ash, and 3 miles from Doncliff,
we reach the ancient Caer Palladwr, or town on the hill-peak,
—the modem Shaston, as it is locally pronounced, or
SHAFTESBURY.
[Population, 2500. Inns: Grosvenor Arms and Abbey Arms.
101 m. from London; 17 m. from Salisbury; 9$ m. from Blandford; 18J m. from
Yeovil; from Wincanton.
£5T Conveyances daily to Yeovil, Blandford, and Salisbury.
Bankers—National Provincial Bank, and Wilts and Dorset Banking Company.
The nearest Railway Station is at GILLINGHAM, 4 m. north-west.]
Goodness knows how ancient is the pretty town of Shaftes¬
bury ! It has stood up yonder on the brink of a narrow ridge
of chalk ever since Celts and Romans contended for the mastery
of England, and was even in existence, according to Holin.shed,
in the days of King Lud,—that is, about 1000 years B.c. A
more modest statement ascribes its foundation to Cassibelaunus ;
and it was certainly a Celtic, and perhaps afterwards a Roman
settlement. A nunnery was founded here in 880 by King
Alfred, whither the body of St. Edward the martyr was removed
from Wareham (June 20, 980) with extraordinary pomp and
splendour, and under the care of St. Dunstan, and Alfere the
caldorman. His shrine became a popular one with English
devotees, who loaded it with riches, until it was eclipsed by the
superior attractions of St. Thomas’s, Canterbury.
Of the twelve churches which, besides chantries and chapels,
Shaftesbury possessed at the epoch of the Conquest, only four
remain—Holy Trinity, St. Peter, St. James, and St. Paul.
The livings of Holy Trinity and St. Peter are now united, in
the patronage of the Earl of Shaftesbury. St. Peter’s is an
ancient and beautiful church, of handsome proportions, with a
richly decorated font, and a good east window. The other
churches possess little to interest the tourist.
Of the once-famous and wealthy abbey, a fragment of gray
mossy wall alone remains. Its spoliation at the Dissolution was,
indeed, complete ; and of its size or plan it is now impossible to
form an estimate. The lands passed into the hands of the Ashley
Coopers, ancestors of the present Earl of Shaftesbury.