The look of the miniature cathedral, solidly planted on its terraced platform suggests that it is the heir to a much older religious tradition.

The Abbey was founded in 1024 by King Canute's thane Orc (perhaps he was one of the courtiers who stood damply round the great man’s throne while the tide rose) Orc was given a grant of land at Portesham and the charter survives. Presumably he was also given Abbotsbury, but it is likely that this charter was blown up with the house in the Civil War.

St Catherine of Alexandria first appears in history around 800AD. She has no solid historical basis and seems to have been the result of a re-branding exercise by the monks of St Catherine’s monastery in Sinai. Before that, the monastery’s major treasure was the bush from which God spoke to Moses – which still grows luxuriantly within the walls. This interesting establishment has survived to the present day because the monks still have a note from Mohammed requiring Muslims not to attack it. It is interesting that Orc’s wife Tola came from Rouen, the European centre of the cult of St Catherine and she may have brought the saint with her to Abbotsbury.

All this happened some 500 – 700 years before the Chapel we see today was constructed, and suggests that it replaces some earlier christian church which itself may have been converted from an earlier pagan temple. This was the economical practice of St Augustine’s missionaries who would, if the building were sound, move the old gods out, move theirs in and continue with the same congregation.

We asked the geophysicists to look for any signs of an earlier structure on the site. They used ground penetrating radar inside the chapel, on the platform round it and on the hilltop to the south. They found little to support the idea of an earlier temple, but on the other hand the platform seems to have been so thoroughly prepared that any trace of an earlier structure could well have disappeared. There was no evidence of a building on the hilltop to the south.

But - the Romans in Dorset seem to have tidied some old temples into neat square buildings in neat square enclosures. There is archaeological evidence at Maiden Castle, Jordan Hill Weymouth, Badbury Rings and Dewlish (see Bill Putnam, Roman Britain, 2007, p121-125). These structures do not seem to be aligned on any particular bearing. The temple building at Maiden Castle is about 19' square. The eye of enthusiasm might see the S corner of one of these aligned NW/SE in in radar traces 14,15,16.

A more robust interpretation of the radar results suggests that the site was cleared and the Chapel built as a single project. Until recently the accepted date for the building of the Chapel was the second half of the 1300s but by then the Abbey was deep in debt and the Black Death had reduced the available labour force by a third or even a half so such an elaborate building project seems unlikely. A somewhat earlier date seems more probable and, for the same reasons, this would apply to the architecturally similar Tithe Barn as well.

For its period the Chapel is fairly conventional. The aligned north and south doors allow for processions to pass through the building in an orderly way. The purpose of the project was probably to attract paying pilgrims and it is likely that they would have been shown the Abbey’s relics of St Catherine as they shuffled past.

The Chapel is laid out on what was probably planned to be a circular or egg shaped plot which would have been normal for the period. A curved edge is visible on the ground on the north side (the far side in the photo above) and curved edges to the east and west but it wasn’t finished to the south.

The radar survey shows what are probably graves under the grassy area immediately to the south – and this was the most desirable place to be buried because the north side of any church is the haunt of ghosts and evil spirits. There is a substantial radar reflection south and a bit west of the south door which is interpreted as the base of a stone cross. in radar trace 20. Since this is about a foot below the ground it might have antedated the building of the Chapel. It was the practice of the Minster priests to preach from a cross

Inside the Chapel, the foundations of the altar and brackets for two statues on either side of the window at the east end can be seen. The statues and altar were probably broken up and removed at the Reformation in the early 1500s. A statue of St Catherine in the chapel at Forde Abbey was smashed at the Reformation and thrown in a ditch. A few years ago it was found again and repaired. Our statue of St Catherine is probably in Abbotsbury somewhere and AHRP would like to find it.

The Abbey and its lands were sold to Sir Giles Strangways by Henry VIII in 1541. It is somewhat odd that the Chapel was not pulled down with the Abbey Church as the contract of sale stipulated. It is usually supposed that it was left standing as a sea-mark, but from any distance out to sea it blends into the hills behind and is almost invisible. In heavy weather it would be useless. Any big ship that came far enough into Lyme Bay to see it would already be in an extremely parlous position on a notorious lee shore. The Chapel is some use to inshore fishermen in helping them find the small reefs and weed patches that shelter particular fish, but it is hard to imagine that the King would bother about their convenience.

St Catherine is one of those embarrassing saints who have no documentary reality. She was huge during the middle ages, but after the Reformation and the counter-Reformation she fell into neglect. By the time of the Civil War in 1650 the Chapel had probably been abandoned as a religious site. The floor in the doorways show deep grooves which suggest that the building was used for a long time as a byre for cattle. There is a story in the village that a heifer once climbed the corner stairs up to the little room at the top and took a deal of getting down again.

In the aftermath of the Civil War there seems to have been an understandable revulsion from religion and its works. Many churches fell into disrepair (which is why Victorian rebuilds were often so drastic). By the mid 1700s the building needed complete restoration which was done by the then Lady Ilchester. St Catherine was removed from the Roman Catholic Calendar in 1967 on the accurate but irrelevant grounds that she was omnina fabulosa – a complete fable. The Chapel is now used for occasional informal CE services. And many people still visit it to leave touching notes and small offerings, asking for the saint’s help in the problems of their lives. If invoked by a spinster with the proper rhyming prayer she will produce a husband. This is only to be done in desperation since the results, in our experience, are usually no better than adequate.

Chesters Hill A crop mark in a photograph, taken by a Sea Harrier of the Indian Navy in 1988, irresistibly suggests a small Roman fort.

It stands on the lower slopes of Chesters Hill, on the edge of the Fleet, just to the SE of the Swannery. The fact that the site is called ‘chesters’ made the identification so certain (since castra, the roman word for a fort, often survives in modern place names as ‘Chester’) that we almost didn’t bother with the survey. But we did and we found nothing.

Dorothea in trouble on the Chesil beach.

This small cargo ship went aground on the Chesil just opposite our site on 14 Feb 1914. She had a cargo of magnetite (iron ore) which had to be shovelled out onto the beach before she could be refloated two years later. One would imagine that the ore - even more valuable in 1915 - 16 because of the war raging across the Channel - was transferred to barges in the Fleet, taken down to Portland and reloaded into a ship; but it could have been taken across to our field and stacked in neat rows on the grass for eventual removal by road. That could explain the modern fence and perhaps the cropmarks. However, it fails to explain the clear absence of any meaningful pattern in the magnetic survey.