Thomas Hollis buried with his horse

There is a tale in the small village of Corscombe, Dorset that an eccentric 

eighteenth century landowner Thomas Hollis is buried beside his favourite horse.

Hollis, English political philosopher and author, is principally remembered 

as a great benefactor to American colleges, especially Harvard, sending 

donations and numerous books.

He had attached himself to no religion and his one abiding belief was that  

had an immutable right to hold any religious belief that he wished. A rationalist who 

saw the fight for a free society in the American colonies as the major contemporary 

world event that had the potential to advance the human mind.

Now back to the horse...

Hollis died on 1st January 1774 (apparently after collapsing in one of his fields) and 

the horse was shot shortly after. They were both lowered into a ten foot hole in 

the middle of a field on the appropriately named Harvard Farm.

This followed the strict instructions he gave, down to the immediate ploughing over 

of the field so that no trace should remain of his burial place.

 Harvard Farm is close to the Sutton Bingham Reservoir and was at that time  

211 acres and sixth in size of his properties and which he was personally managing 

at the time of his death. 

The names of the fields his colonial interest such as New England field, Boston, 

Mayhew Cotton, Massachusetts and so on. 

The field Massachusetts tenuously retains its name in away as the farmers refer to 

it now as ‘Massy Field.’

Although he only spent four years in the village he has had great effect on 

the area, undertaking extensive repair to the local church. 

An eccentric man who when he lost his home because of a fire he walked out saving 

only one thing – his portrait of John Milton.