The Tichborne Dole

The story is that the dying Lady Mabella asked her husband, Sir Roger Tichborne, for a dole of bread to be given every Lady Day, and he promised her as much land as she could go round while a brand burned, thinking she could not go far. She crawled round many acres, and warned that the family would fail if the dole was ever stopped. It was given for generations, fourteen hundred loaves at a time, until it was halted in 1796 because of the crowds of vagrants it drew. Soon after, part of the house fell, a baronet had seven sons, the eldest had seven daughters and the name passed out of the family, just as foretold; the dole was revived and is still given.