studland church, dorset

the banks family crest on their hatchments probably indicatse that they were involved with the slave or sugar trade. they seem to have treated their local tenants little better, enclosing common land and pushing tenant farmers out in order to take their estate under direct control. they owned studland from the mid c17, but only lived here from the mid c19, though these hatchments look late c18 . ralph banks gave the estate to the national trust in 1981, so the family wasn't all bad.