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ANOTHER DORSET GIANT

Unlike the Giant of Cerne whose very existence is legendary, this Giant lived and died within the memory of people who are still with us. He died, well when did he die? Already the stories about him differ, even in the essentials like his year of death.

It does seem however that when I first heard of him he’d been dead for fifty years. My informant said his name was Bill Cant, the Cant being short for Cantlebury. No, said somebody else, it was Canterbury. For a long time I accepted that his name was Bill Legg until someone who should know said it was Thomas, Bill Thomas.

Originally from Poorton he lived at Toller Porcorum. Over there, the other side of the hill he was known as the Toiler Giant and was seven feet four inches tall. Here, in Powerstock he was the Powerstock Giant. The cobblers shop where his boots were made still stands opposite the Three Horse Shoes. The iron tips were made at the forge a hundred yards away. One pair of these boots, so they say, was bought by a shoe polish company for an advert. The lasts for making the boots were made at the same forge and were supposed to be in the County Museum as were a sample of the tips. Alas, my enquiries were fruitless.

Interest was revived recently when a letter appeared in the Daily Mirror from a man in Liverpool who had spent his boyhood in Powerstock and wanted to know more about this giant of a man. The writer said that Bill Legg (Thomas) could pick up a length of railway line in each hand - the Giant was a ganger on the line between Bridport and Maiden Newton. When he performed this feat the weight of the iron forced the nails in his boots up into his feet. The standard length of line at that time was twenty yards and weighed sixty pounds per yard. Work it out for yourself!

Wytherstone Farm is, at a guess, about a mile and a half, perhaps a little less if you walk along the line from Powerstock Station. It was farmed in the Giant’s time by a farmer called Curtis who had had a new chain harrow delivered to the station. It weighed about two and a half hundred weight and Bill Cant kindly carried it home for Mr. Curtis. He carried another one to Whetley for Mr. Groves but that wasn’t as far. He was obviously the right kind of man for the Railway Company to employ and he must have done the work of two lesser mortals.

Miss Isobel Gale of Powerstock who was ninety this year (1977) remembers being picked up by him with one hand -she sat on it - when she was a child. Another ninety year old, Miss Fanny Billen of Toiler remembers him as a ‘huge man with a moustache and a billycock hat, turned up in front. His boots were as long as my arm.’ All accounts agreed that he was a well liked man, ‘an old fashioned sort.’ Despite this he became involved in a political argument outside the Three Horse Shoes during an election and a gamekeeper cut off one of his ears with a billhook.
As so often happens in men of great size and strength he was regarded as a ‘bit simple’ and became the butt of village jokers. He was constantly being dared to do things by the village children. “Billy can’t do this” and “Billy can’t do that”.

One winters afternoon in 1 899(?) he was seen by Mr. Walbridge of Manor farm and by Hansford the carter wandering the fields towards Little Toiler. He said he’d had notice to ‘pack in’ and appeared worried at the thought of not having a job. Remember there was no old age pension then.

The next morning the policeman was around the village asking folks to keep an eye open for Bill Cant. Walbridge and Hansford accompanied by the boy Walbridge found him hanging under the Black Bridge. Hansford and the boy returned to the village with the bad news and the boy remembers the body of the Toiler Giant being brought back in a spring wagon, his legs protruding from the back resting on a hurdle.

He was buried just outside the churchyard in the manner of the time. The taunt of ‘Billy can’t hang himself’ proved to be too much.

Footnotes.

Since this was written the people mentioned are no longer with us.

This year, 1988, the grand daughter of the Mr. Waibridge who found the body happened to visit Clarks Shoe Museum at Street in Somerset. Much to her surprise, there on display were Bill Cant’s boots. She was as pleased to tell me as I was to hear it, especially as she provided, over the years, a lot of the information I have used

The boots spent some time hanging up in the Crook and Shears public house at Upper Clatford near Andover. They had been presented to the Museum by the grand daughter of the Landlord, MIS Rosalie Saunders. So ends a mystery.