When his workmen arrived to dismantle the cross, they were prevented from doing so by the people of the city, who "organised a small riot"[3] and they were forced to abandon their task.
The agreement with the city was cancelled and Dummer erected a lath and plaster facsimile, which stood in the park for about sixty years before it was destroyed by the weather.
[4] Undaunted by his failure to acquire the City Cross to grace the estate, Dummer turned his attention to the ruins of Netley Abbey, which he also owned, and moved the north transept of the abbey to Cranbury Park, where it can be still be seen as a folly in the gardens of the house (at 51°00′08″N 01°21′49″W / 51.00222°N 1.36361°W / 51.00222; -1.36361).
The rear of the gateway has been made into a keeper's lodge, and is known to the village of Otterbourne as "the Castle"[4] and is marked as such on the Ordnance Survey map.
Thomas Dummer died without heirs in 1781, leaving his property at Cranbury and Netley and also at Horninghold in Leicestershire first to his widow, Harriet, daughter of Sir Cecil Bishopp, 6th Baronet of Parham, with reversion to his lifelong friend Thomas Chamberlayne.