Thomas Delacourt of Dorset and the "Bloody Bank" - from collecting the executed in 1685, to imprisoning the executor in 1688

Wareham on the south Dorset coast has an ancient Saxon era earthwork wall that surrounds the town. On its West Walls is a section known as the "Bloody Bank" because it was where, after the "Bloody Assizes" of King James II and Judge George Jeffreys, at least five men were hung drawn and quartered on 22 September 1685. 

"There can have been few villages in Dorset and Somerset, west of a line drawn from Bath to Wareham, which did not contain folk who had seen their friends' flesh displayed in public, or heard of the price paid for a kinsman's living body for toil in the plantations, or for a girl sold to a Court lady for a servant. Jeffreys' chair and a spike on which a rebel's head was set are still preserved at Dorchester in the museum opposite his house: it can hardly have been accident that has distinguished and kept them. Local memories show how deep and intimate was the touch of his work. One man ("Burn-guts") sold furze to the authorities for burning rebel entrails: his horses one by one pined and died. A woman said it did her eyes good to see a very old man called Larke hanged. She lost her sight within a short time.

One man of Wareham, Thomas Delacourt, was present at the final stage in this horrible drama. Quarters of some of the victims were exposed on Bloody Bank at Wareham the place gets its name there from. Delacourt and some friends stole the remains and buried them. 

Delacourt was one of the first to join William of Orange, and went to London in his train: and it fell to him to be made sentry over Jeffreys when the judge, in the year of that more successful Revolution, was cast into the Tower, where he died".

- from The Soul of Dorset by F.J. Harvey Darton (1922)

• At the first show trial of the "Bloody Assizes", held at Dorchester on 27 August, Jeffreys had described the people of the south west of England as "lying, snivelling Presbyterian Rescals". Later generations of Delacourts in Wareham belonged to the United Reformed Church in the town, which tends to be the name given in England for Presbyterian.

• Here is a pic of the Old Meeting House in Church Street (formerly Meeting House Lane) in the town - a datestone on the front of the building says "Founded 1662".

• At Dorchester, Jeffreys condemned 251 people to death