December 09th, 2025

I have recently been studying the arms on Cerne Abbey's Abbots Porch.  There are two Newburgh arms represented there.  The first was for the Newburghs of Lulworth that went extinct in 1514 and is impaled with the Wadham arms.   

The second shield shows the Newburghs and the Framptons. In the article I posted in the December 2025 newsletter, I was unsure as to what the impaled arms on the second shield were until I started searching through the heraldry books that I own. I found the Frampton's in Foster.

These shields are carved in stone and have eroded since the porch was built after 1485/90.  What it looks like is that these are more contemporary shields that bore the Lulworth arms.  

The fact of the matter is, there were two families descended from John Newburgh, Esquire (b. 1402 and d. 1484)  The family line that inherited the Esquire's legacy was actually born as a bastard son. He was William Newburgh who d. 1471 at the Battle of Bosworth. His mother was the Esquire's mistress Alice Carent, who later became his second wife. 

​The Esquire's legitimate son John Jr. (d. 1496) was a Yorkist which did not sit well with his father.  John Jr.'s son was Roger Newburgh Knight of the Bath.  Consequently, we are seeing the two late 15th century lines of the Esquire represented at Cerne.

The line we see in the second shield was actually the great grandson of the Esquire, Sir Roger Newburgh Knight of the Bath.  His daughter Anastasia married into the Frampton family.

Ged Fox has a nice write up about the Frampton's which strengthens my research about the Abbot's Porch Newburghs. 

​https://heraldryofthewestcountry.wordpress.com/2017/03/02/framptons-of-dorset/