[image error] The names of fields often have meanings that are obscure to us today but in the Dorset villages of Halstock and Corscombe they hold a clue to the secret burial of one of the greatest academic patrons of the eighteenth century.

Thomas Hollis was a very unusual character for his age. As a libertarian and a firm believer in democracy, he was of the opinion that the people had every right to depose a tyrant. As a republican, he was all in favour of the increasingly independent noises coming out of...