Beast · Bisterne
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Two dogs, one hide, one dead dragon, and a knight who did not long survive it.
Private, don't visit
The manor is private; the hamlet lies on a minor road south of Ringwood. Check before you go.
A milk-drinking dragon, a knight in a hide, and two brave dogs.
A dragon from Burley Beacon is said to have terrorised Bisterne, near Ringwood, taking a pail of milk every day. Sir Maurice Berkeley, the lord of the manor, armed with two dogs and covered in a hide for protection, killed it in a fight remembered in the name Dragon Fields. He died soon after, and his dogs too. The earliest written source is a marginal note on a Berkeley pedigree roll from before 1618, kept at Berkeley Castle. A carving dated 1652 on Bisterne Manor is said to show the dragon and the beacon. The manor is private.