The Milton Abbas Local History Group were extremely fortunate in being able to view the excavations. These will shortly be covered over again probably for another one hundred years. We await the full archaeological report with interest.

This gravestone is important. The crispness of the carving shows that it cannot have been exposed to the weather for long. It bears the date 1754, and we guess that it was broken up in the 1770’s and used as infill for the restoration of the Abbey by Wyatt shortly after.

The decoration at the head of the stone is beautifully carved.

The inscription reads “Here… of …R… died the 19th of Ap.. Aged 73 years… of Elizabeth his Wife …d of Septembr 1754 … years”.

There is sufficient information to figure out who this memorial is dedicated to. I leave to our readers to use opcdorset to discover more.