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Antelope Walk, Dorchester

DORCHESTER'S Antelope Walk has always played a leading role in county town life. A quaint and cobbled link between the bustling thoroughfares of South Street and Trinity Street, it is a magnet for shoppers and as well as those interested in learning a bit about Dorchester's past.

In Antelope Walk today, a number of High Street shops rub shoulders with popular independent retailers and the alleyway is usually thronged with customers. It has changed considerably over the years. The Cornhill/South Street end of the walk used to host the Antelope Inn, one of Dorchester's three old coaching inns, as the bow front windows of Monsoon and the Body Shop and the wide gap between the two bear witness. The other two inns were the Kings Arms in High East Street and the Greyhound Inn which stood where Waitrose now trades.

The Antelope was a popular hostelry in the county town and it was only in the late 1980s that it was taken over and transformed into a thriving retail development. But go back a few centuries and you uncover a far less genial side to the Antelope Walk.

George Jeffreys, the First Baron of Wem, was widely feared as the hanging judge' - and for good reason. In 1685 he came to Dorchester to mete out justice in the aftermath of the Monmouth Rebellion and lodged in what is now the Oak Rooms tea room.

Dorchester's exuberant town crier Alistair Chisholm is something of an expert on Jeffreys and his Bloody Assizes and regularly leads ghost walks with a historical bent through the town and up through Antelope Walk.

"It's a scary place," he says, "full of the ghosts of all those mangled torsos of the people who were hung, drawn and quartered on the orders of Judge Jeffreys who had his quarters in the Oak Room."

Also known as the Pitchfork Rebellion, the Monmouth uprising was an attempt to overthrow King James II, who was unpopular because he was Roman Catholic.

James Scott, the 1st Duke of Monmouth, claimed to be rightful heir to the throne and attempted to displace the monarch. In June 1685, he sailed to Lyme Regis from Holland with the intention of raising an army of men to march on London and seize the crown. But the alarm was raised, so Scott marched to Somerset and declared himself king in Taunton instead.

Alistair Chisholm is an expert on the Bloody Assizes

However, his triumph was shortlived. Parallel rebellions in Scotland and East Anglia were either put down or failed to materialise, the Royal Navy surrounded his ships off the coast of Dorset and his forces were defeated at the Battle of Sedgemoor on the Somerset Levels.

Scott fled and was captured - either in the New Forest or in Holton, Dorset - and beheaded for treason. Many of his followers were either killed or rounded up, leading to the death or transportation of 1,400 rebels.

Judge Jeffreys was the circuit judge involved in trying their cases and much of his work was carried out in Dorchester.

It is said that from his lodgings in the Oak Rooms, halfway up Antelope Walk, he would walk through secret passages to the court house where he did his bloody business, thus never being seen in public.

"It was tradition in those days to build your gallows in the most prominent place in the town, which would have been the old market where the town pump is in Cornhill today," says Alistair Chisholm.

"Jeffreys' victims would have been hung, drawn and quartered and their body parts hung on the railings outside St Peter's Church.

"Of course today the Antelope Walk is an important part of the town and a huge success," says Alistair. "But with a history like the one it has, it is bound to be haunted.

"When they were digging it up and refurbishing it, workmen found all sorts of tunnels and cellars which were marvellous, although of course they had to be filled in on health and safety grounds. They say that you can hear a tapping behind the wooden panels in there.

"Jeffreys was a much-hated man and he died in the Tower of London.

"The people of Dorchester were so angry that they tore his body to pieces and hid his bones behind the panelling.

"That's what makes the tapping noise!

"They say that if you are brave enough, if you go up Antelope Walk at night and look up to the Oak Room windows, you can see the face of Judge Jeffreys leering down at you, all bloody and grimacing. What a ghastly image!"

If you would like to supply us with further details about the history of Dorchester, we would love to hear from you.

Call Ruth Meech on 01305 830973 or email her at ruth.meech@dorsetecho.co.uk

9:53am Tuesday 4th March 2008

The infamous Judge Jeffreys

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