STORIES of a gravedigger inspired Sid Payne to write a book on Georgian Portland.

History buff Sid has just published A Portland Tale - A View of Parish Life in Georgian England which is based upon the life of Abraham Winter and his family and takes in events and happenings on the island and further afield as the century unfolded.

The inspiration for the book came from Sid’s interest in the churchwardens’ accounts for the old parish church of St Andrew’s on Portland, which are held in the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester.

Churchwardens’ accounts were a record of expenses paid out to maintain the church and its religious ceremonies and Sid spent painstaking hours translating them into modern English.

Whilst translating the churchwardens’ accounts Sid began to think about the possibility of creating a fictional story based around the real-life characters mentioned in the accounts.

Sid was fascinated by one Abraham Winter - who worked on the island as the church sexton, an occupation which involved digging the graves and general maintenance around the church.

He said: "It was quite a difficult and time-consuming task. The Georgian spellings and style of writing presented several challenges for me to come up with a correct translation… they spelt their words as they would pronounce them so, for example in 1730 we had “Received for a Rate In dost in ye Book” which translates as “Received for a rate endorsed in the book”.

Abraham was born on Portland in 1705. He married Ann Stevens at the old church in the year 1727 and they went on to have six children together called John, Ann (died), Henry, Ann, Mary and Ruth. Abraham was paid six shillings a year for his work as the sexton and he no doubt supplemented this income with other work, probably as a quarryman or fisherman.

Translating the accounts offered a fascinating insight into parish life on Georgian Portland, Sid said. Common occurrences for the churchwardens would include paying fees for ‘removing the vermin’, these included animals such as polecats, sparrows and foxes. Other regular payments would be made for mending the church and for paying for the annual visitation form the bishop. An example of this occurred in 1757 when there was a visitation held at Dorchester. The churchwardens paid £1/2s/1d for hiring and feeding the horses, a dinner and delivering briefs for the rates to the bishop.

Other more poignant events mentioned in the accounts were the descriptions of bodies found washed ashore including a soldier in 1758 when they wrote “Augt: ye 1 Then paid unto John Ayles & Richd. Fleming & others for the Buering a did man Throaon AShore at Colestone Shore as appeired to be a Solder”. Mention was also made of paupers or those who had suffered misfortune passing through the parish who were given alms such as Clement Brine of Dorchester and a man from Wiltshire, both had suffered a misfortune by fire in 1763. Another interesting event occurred in 1758 when a man called Samuel Painter was buried in mysterious circumstances.

Smuggling was an all too present part of everyday life along the coast of Dorset and this is perfectly illustrated in another story from the churchwardens’ accounts. In 1731 a ship called the Sea Horse was impounded off the coast of Portland by Captain Stares of the Customs sloop the Walker. The ship was an Irish vessel trying to land 496 barrels of illegal butter.

Sid said: "It is interesting to see what happened to the spoils of this cargo, one half of which went to Captain Stares and the other half was sold for the use of the poor of Portland."

The gradual demise of the old parish church of St Andrew’s is reported in the accounts.. There are many incidences when money is being paid out for mending the fabric of the building. In 1732 major work began on repairing the church tower as we see how money was paid out for timber for the scaffolding, stones, sand, lime and the wages for the tradesmen and labourers.

The transcription/translation of the churchwardens’ accounts is currently held at the Portland Local & Family History Centre, located at the St George’s Centre at Reforne on Portland and can be accessed by the public.

*A Portland Tale - A View of Parish Life in Georgian England by Sid Payne is available to buy now for £6.99. It's available from publisher Olympia, Waterstone's online and from Amazon

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