Dorset Ancestors Rotating Header Image

John Hutchins

Pimperne – A Village Fit for a Queen

A village fit for a Queen; so thought Henry VIII. He granted the Manor of Pimperne to his fifth wife Catherine Howard but only for the duration of her life. Henry had a clever head on his shoulders, for after he saw to it that Catherine lost hers, he granted the Manor in 1543 to her successor Catherine Parr, who had the good fortune to survive her husband.

In the late 18th and early 19th centuries villagers could still recall handed down memories of the Queen’s Walk, which apparently wound round the village but by then had long disappeared as had a maze that was famous in its day. Made from banks of earth about a foot high it was said: “It was the delight of the rustics on certain days of the year to thread this labyrinth, which was of a very complex pattern.” John Hutchins tells us the maze was ploughed into the ground in 1730.
 
We often acknowledge our indebtedness to Dorset’s greatest historian, John Hutchins, overlooking that it was his wife Anne, the daughter of the Revd. Thomas Stephens, a rector of Pimperne, who, at considerable risk to her own life, saved her husband’s manuscripts when fire struck at Wareham. (See our story John Hutchins in the Biography Category 13th of January 2010.)
 
Sheltering under an ancient spreading chestnut tree about fifty yards from the church and just outside its gates is the village preaching cross. All that remains of the cross is the lower part of an octagonal shaft set in a square pedestal on a plinth of three steps, the lower step being well worn. All such crosses were ordered by Cromwell to be cut down to the height of a man, though this one is unusually tall. Some sources date the cross to the 14th century but the RCHM says it is: “probably late 15th century.” A soldier of the New Model Army was buried in the churchyard on the 16th of January 1645.

The churchyard is entered through a lynch-gate erected by the Woodhouse family as a memorial commemorating the life of Lieutenant Edward John Woodhouse of the family brewing firm and the Central India Horse, Major Oliver George Woodhouse of the West Kent Regiment who was killed at Dunkirk in 1940 and Colonel Harold Woodhouse, who collapsed and died during an air raid at Blandford Camp in 1943 while serving as Camp Commandant. (See our article Ansty Brewery: The Early Years, in the Hilton Category.)

There has been a church on this site since Saxon times. The present church is dedicated to St. Peter and was rebuilt in 1873-4 at the expense of Viscount Portman of Bryanstone; it incorporates evidence of the earlier building. The 12th century chancel arch has been reset at the north side of the chancel and the Norman south doorway was moved to the west end of the south aisle. In the vestry is a Norman font with beautifully carved flowers and twining stems on its bowl. The date of the conical stone cover is unknown but certainly came later and we are told was found buried in the churchyard. Hutchins records four bells, the oldest dated 1694; a further bell has been added.

Whether or not Henry’s wives spent any time at Pimperne is difficult to say but in view of the distance from London it is unlikely they visited often. The existence of a Queen’s Walk and the arms of Henry VIII in the Rectory suggest that they did visit Pimperne, in which case they would have worshipped at St. Peter’s Church.

The Rectory is a two storey house with tiled roofs and attics built from brick banded with flint. The present building dates from 1712 but incorporates parts of an earlier building of 1530. On a shield within the building is Henry VIII arms with crown, garter, dragon and greyhound supporters and with a rose and portcullis.
 
In a list of rectors since 1299 some noteworthy names appear including: Christopher Pitt who gained some recognition in the 18th century for his translation of the Aeneid; George Bingham, who followed him as rector, who ministered here for 52 years and the Victorian author the Reverend Charles Kingsley, who was curate here in the early 1840’s.  Robert Frampton was born here in 1622 and went on to be Bishop of Gloucester between 1681 and 1691.

The village has been known as Pimperne since 1271, the name is thought to be from the Celtic words pimp and prenn meaning “Five trees”.  Domesday Book tells us of forty families living here in 1086 when the village was surveyed together with Charlton Marshall and Hutchins records 80 families when he surveyed Pimperne.  In more recent times the size of the parish has been increased by boundary changes: the Domesday settlement of Nutsford joined the parish in 1886; land in the south including the manor of Damory Court, mentioned in 1363, was transferred to Pimperne in 1894 and in 1933 small areas of Tarrant Hinton, Launceston and Monkton were taken into Pimperne. The census for 2001 records the population of the parish as being 995 occupying 447 dwellings.

Judging by the size of the Pimperne Long Barrow (330 feet in length and 140 feet wide), there would have been a sizable population here in Neolithic times. From the air a series of crop and soil-marks reveal an area of Iron Age dykes and enclosures. The barrow lies on the Tarrant Hinton side of the parish boundary.

Even after much chopping and changing Henry VIII never did find the right wife. John Williams of Pimperne faired better with his choice of wife and left in the church vestry a brass memorial to her.  It reads: “Near this place lies the body of Mrs Dorothy Williams who deceased Nov. ye 24th Ano Dom 1694. Erected by her husband John Williams Cler. in memory of the best of wives.”

Swyre

Swyre has been the home and the last resting place for members of two of Dorset’s best known families, the Russell’s and the Napier’s, and the Rector here from 1729 until his death in 1778 was John Hutchins whose work  The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset is a main source material for anyone studying the County.

Swyre is a coastal parish about 5 miles east of Bridport that comprises nearly eleven hundred acres of farmland. The church in the Early English style was dedicated to The Holy Trinity in 1503 and stands on the eastern edge of the parish. Its walls are built of local rubble and the roofs are covered with slates. The chancel arch and the west tower survive from c.1400; the nave and chancel were rebuilt in 1843 and in 1885 the vestry and organ-chamber were added. The tower houses two bells both thought to be from the 15th century.

There are brasses in the church and memorials in the churchyard to members of the Gallop and Squibb families and others commemorating the lives of prominent members of the Russell and the Napier families.

About a mile from the church is Berwick House. Built in the 16th century it is the birthplace of John Russell, the first Duke of Bedford.  In 1506 a vessel with the Archduke Phillip of Austria and his Spanish wife on board sought shelter in Weymouth harbour. The couple were taken to Wolfeton House, the home of Sir Thomas Trenchard, on the outskirts of Dorchester, and word was sent to Berwick House for his nephew, John Russell, who was a Spanish speaker, to come and interpret. On a later occasion when the Archduke was visiting King Henry VIII, he mentioned to the king the service provided by John Russell and in recognition of his service he was appointed to the King’s Privy chamber.

John Russell had a distinguished career and managed to keep his head, in itself no mean feat for an advisor to the King. He held many posts including that of Ambassador to the Pope. In 1547 he was granted the monastery of Woburn Abbey and in that same year he attended the coronation of King Edward Vl in his position of Lord High Steward of England. He was created Earl of Bedford around 1549 and died in Buckinghamshire on the 14th of March 1554.

In 1851 a school was provided to teach 40 children, by 1895 the Duke of Bedford owned all the land in the parish, although none of the later Dukes resided in Dorset.

From  the beginning of the 17th century Berwick House and farm have been leased to tenant farmers. The Napier family, who held land in Swyre, Bexington and Puncknowle appear to have had an interest in Berwick between 1602 and 1641, while Mary, the daughter of Julius Squibb and wife of George Gallop inherited Berwick in 1687. George and Mary Gallop’s son George was the Sheriff of Dorset in 1745, Thomas was Captain of Portland Castle and James was Sheriff of Dorset in 1768.

Arthur Mee, the editor of the 1939 edition of The King’s England, dismisses Swyre in one sentence as “a small, humble and uninteresting settlement.”  We beg to differ.

Thomas Gerard of Trent

Thomas Gerard was born at Trent in 1593. Educated at Gloucester Hall, Oxford, he was an historian, friend of Leicestershire historian, William Burton and an admirer of William Camden. It is only recently, since 1896, that Trent transferred from Somerset to Dorset. Thomas Gerard developed a liking for Dorset, following his marriage in 1618 to (Mrs) Ann Coker of Mappowder.

Their daughter, Ann, married Francis Wyndham of Trent in 1646 and in 1651 Francis and Ann provided a refuge for King Charles II, hiding him from the pursuing Parliamentarian soldiers as he travelled through Somerset on his way to Bridport and safety in France.

Thomas Gerard wrote the first book in English about Dorset but today it is still known as Coker’s Survey of Dorset, having been wrongly credited to his brother-in-law, John Coker, when the manuscript, missing its title page, was discovered and published a century after Thomas Gerard had written it. ‘Coker’s Survey of Dorestshire – containing the Antiquities and Natural History of that County’ is the book’s full title.
 
It is Gerard’s unfinished work about Somerset: ‘Particular Description of Somerset’ of which there is no doubt he is the author, which provides the proof that he, rather than his brother-in-law, John Coker, was the author of the Survey of Dorset. Both books use the same organised plan of work and start with a map of the county showing the names of the hundreds, followed by a general description of the County using headings such as: rivers, commodities and forests. He follows the rivers each in turn from their source, describing the towns along their route to the sea noting any important families living along the way. If further proof is needed on page 76 of the book the author refers to “…my predecessor John Gerard.

 The History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, by John Hutchins is the major reference work for anyone studying the history of the county and Hutchins used ‘Coker’s,’ as he referred to it, as a reference source.

Thomas Gerard died aged 40 years.

Swyre and Holy Trinity Church

“A small grey village rather like Cornwall” is how some writers have described Swyre, in its picturesque and rather privileged position near the coast in West Dorset. Swyre in fact lies about half a mile inland from the coast path just beyond the western end of Chesil beach, on the B3157 roughly midway between Bridport and Abbotsbury. It is a settlement of the distinctly linear type, which has grown up along a narrow unclassified lane linking the coast road with the main A35 road to Bridport from Dorchester.

The allusion of Cornwall probably arises from the colour and texture of the cottages and houses which, unusually are confined to the west side of the main street and are a curious mix of the old, modernised old, and the modern. At the southern end are situated the Manor Farm and Holy Trinity Church.

This building is of stone in the Early English style. Holy Trinity was originally built in 1505, and is therefore Tudor and around 200 years later than many other churches in the county. It is rather plain and unadorned building of which only the tower and the chancel arch survive from the 16th century. However, the entire remainder of the church was re-built in 1863, a time when many other parish churches were rebuilt.

The Dorset History Centre holds the baptism registers from 1587/8 to 1998, marriage registers from 1588 to 1926, burial registers 1588 to 2001 (there is a gap in the records between 1812-1814) and the register of banns 1754 to 1915. The Bishop’s transcripts date from 1732 and there are overseer’s accounts 1601 to 1667 and from 1722 to 1837. The Parish of Swyre covers an area of 1081 acres, and had a population of 154 in 1891. The area around the church is a conservation area and some adjoining agricultural land was allotted to the churchyard in 2002.

Of the Church’s Rectors, there are no surviving records before 1297. It was at this time that one John de Candel was the incumbent, but the most distinguished Rector of Swyre was probably the noted Dorset historian John Hutchins. Hutchins was instituted to the living in 1729, and is noted for having repaired the chancel at his own expense during the period of his ministry.

Inside the church can be seen some early 16th century brasses commemorating the Russells, a Dorset merchant family and the principal land owning family associated with Swyre. John Russell rose to be a courtier in an unusual way. In 1506 a ship bearing the daughter of the king and queen of Castille ran aground at Weymouth in a storm. As John Russell could speak Spanish, he was called upon to act as interpreter for the Princess and her husband, Archduke Phillip of Austria. He then accompanied the royal couple to the court of Henry VII at Windsor, where he came to the notice of the king. Henry made Russell a courtier, from where he rose to other positions of high standing over the next thirty years.

Today Holy Trinity Church stands within a broad rectangular churchyard, bordered and well enclosed by mature trees. Access from the road is via either of two gates in the stone wall at the tower (west) end of the church. The visitor will notice that the majority of headstones date from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, and in most instances their inscriptions are entirely obliterated by lichen. One very curious feature of these headstones is that there are two to be seen broken clean in two, as if deliberately struck with a sledgehammer in an act of desecration. Many of the grave-slabs too, are in a ruinous and pitted condition.

Unusually, the church has on display inside a ground plan showing the positions of the graves, which are numbered to correspond with a list of names of people buried in the ground. This document is kept on a lectern near the tower, a copy of which is also held by the Dorset History Centre in Dorchester.

A Day Out at Wareham

To the family historian Wareham is a registration district, suggesting a largish centre for trade and commerce and as such deserving to keep its alphabetical position on your list of places to spend a day out. Perish that thought. Wareham, situated between the Rivers Frome and Piddle, is a low skyline town hindered by nothing remotely resembling the term high rise or concrete jungle. Even the town’s Italian restaurant on North Street shelters under an ancient thatch.

As anyone with roots in the town will know many of the milestones in the lives of their ancestors were probably marked by events at Lady St. Mary’s church. To get there from the centre of town proceed along East Street taking a right turn into Church Lane. On the left as you proceed along Church Lane to Lady St. Mary’s there is, set back a little, a building which may hold the key to overcoming many a family historians Wareham ‘brickwalls.’

In the 17th century Wareham was home to a large congregation of Dissenters and in 1689 they built the Presbyterian Meeting House and made it their spiritual home. Partly destroyed in the great fire of 1762 it was rebuilt later that year. If your ancestors disappeared from the parish records there is a strong possibility record of them will be here. More recently the church has been known as the Congregational Church and is now known as the United Reformed Church.

The faithful have been worshipping at the site of Lady St.Mary’s Church for at least 1300 years. The nearby 16th century priory is now a hotel. The present building dates mostly from 1842 but the St. Edwards Chapel of 1100 remains. We will look at the church and its history in more detail in a future article about the history of Wareham and its churches.

In the small square to the front of the church entrance there is a stone recording the planting of a tree to commemorate the wedding of HRH the Prince of Wales to Lady Diana Spencer on the 29th July 1981.

Walk through the small alleyway and you will be in the area known as the Quay where you can sit by the river and be served by pubs and restaurants. From the South Bridge you can look down over the Quay and upstream you will see moored many small sailing craft. The River Frome is tidal at this point. On the hard standing at the foot of the bridge there is a man who will hire you a small motor boat by the hour.

Near the bottom of South Street on your left and hidden away down a short alley is the entrance to Holy Trinity Church. On this site before the Norman Conquest there was a chapel dedicated to St. Andrew. Dorset historian John Hutchins was installed as rector in 1743. Nowadays the building is home to the Purbeck Information and Heritage Centre.

Continuing up South Street on your left is the Bear Inn and Hotel and across the road a fine three story Georgian property, The Manor House built in 1712. There is a small shopping development here on the site of the former church dedicated to St. John.

We are back at the cross roads at the centre of the town and what would have been the business heart of the place and rather confirms Wareham as a small town. Here on the corner of North and East Streets is the Town Hall in earlier days the site of St. Peter’s parish church dating from 1321. Damaged in the great fire of 1762 it was rebuilt as the Town Hall and jail in 1768. It was rebuilt again in 1870 and nowadays it is the town’s museum and also home to the local Tourist Information Centre.

Opposite the Town Hall in East Street is an interesting building with a bell tower. Actually the tower was part of the Town Hall until that building was rebuilt in 1870 and the tower moved across the street. John Streche an Essex man who had property in the town founded the Almshouses in 1418 and now they are private residences; new almshouses were built in 1908 at Westport. The building we see here today was re-built in 1741 by Henry Drax and John Pitt, Members of Parliament for the Borough.

Let us turn about and cross over into West Street and continue to Bloody Bank – the town’s place for executions in days past. The historian John Hutchins tells us the place got its name after five men involved in the Monmouth Rebellion were sent there in 1685 by Judge Jeffreys to be hung, drawn and quartered. But the place could have earned its name earlier as executions are believed to have been carried out here from as far back as 1213.

We can now walk along the bank up to the North Walls, from where there is an excellent view across to the River Piddle and the North Bridge. Continue round to the top of North Street and visit Wareham’s jewel: St. Martin’s Church.

The writer had mixed feelings towards the artist selling his pictures from inside the church and wondered what our Lord might have thought about it. On the other hand had he not been there it might not have been possible to gain access and his wildlife paintings were rather good.

The Saxon church is small and we are told St. Aldhelm founded a church here in 698. The present building dates from early in the 11th century and has a number of wall paintings and inscriptions the earliest said to date from the 12th century. After 1736 the church was only used for a brief period and then only for baptisms and marriages. It fell into disuse and was unused for about 200 years. In 1935 it was restored and at the request of his younger brother an effigy of T.E. Lawrence – “Lawrence of Arabia” – was placed in the north aisle.

As you leave St. Martin’s you can see straight down North Street to the cross roads at the centre of town and as you walk that way you will notice the Methodist church on your left.

A day well spent; St. Martin’s alone is worth the trip but do check first that it is open.

Wimborne to 1800 – A Brief History

There is no certainty whether the site of Wimborne, the historic Minster town of Dorset, had any pre-cursor before the Saxon period. The town occupies a rather strategic position on the floodplain of the convergent rivers Stour and Allen, a situation of quick flooding and drying as the rivers rise and subside. But the Allen had long protected and restricted urban development eastwards.

Although it did not originate as a Saxon Burgh with the status of Bridport or Wareham, Wimborne has nevertheless been a significant royal manor since the 8th century AD. Early in that century King Ina (or Ine) of the West Saxons (688-726) founded the bishopric of Sherborne and appointed St. Aldhelm as its first bishop. In 705, Ina’s sister Cuthberga founded a nunnery on the site, which then became a monastic order for men as well as women. Both Cuthberga and her sister Quinberga – credited with being the co-founders of the town – were buried there.

The term ‘Minster’ occurs in other Dorset place names and can signify both a group of churches founded by King Ina to support a bishopric, and a monastic abbey church. Wimborne first appears as a Minster in 871. The nunnery was sacked and destroyed by invading Danes in 1013, but in 1043 Edward the Confessor founded a college of secular canons on the site. The collegiate building has not survived, but some of the fabric of the late Saxon church (i.e. the Minster) is preserved in the transepts and crossing. For centuries the church retained a special status as a royal free chapel independent of the bishop.

At Doomesday in 1086 Wimborne was held by Queen Matilda as lands of the King, and fell within the 32-hide Hundred of Badbury. But it was the Earl of Gloucester (the future King John) who granted the Minster a charter. The Minster then underwent phases of extensive re-ordering and enlargement in 12th, 13th and 14th centuries. Two developments in the 15th century were the addition of the western tower and a spire to the crossing-tower, though the central tower’s embattled parapet and pinnacles were not added until 1608. The main interior features of interest are the Norman Purbeck Stone font, a 15th century brass to king Ethelred, a medieval astronomical clock and the Chained Library – possibly the earliest public library anywhere.

Like other religious foundations Wimborne attracted settlement of population, though its site was less spectacular than that of Shaftesbury or Corfe. By 1200 a market and fair to be held on St. Cuthberga’s Day (August 31st) was in existence. Originally this was held in the churchyard but in 1244 it was compelled to move onto open space now partly occupied by the present Cornmarket, just west of the Minster. This market was the property of the Deanery Manor and provided the church with an income from stallholders. Further streets would later grow up around the Cornmarket, which also held the stocks for public punishments.

The church/market area then provided the focus around which the town developed in the form of what can be identified as three distinct boroughs or areas. Essentially the area to the north of the Minster and its grounds developed as two boroughs laid out along the axis of what would be called East Street and West Street. Here was centered the first commercial activity in the town. This development was established by the de Lacy’s, Lords of Kingston Lacy, who may have set up a market while the Deanery was without Royal support. But the long streets of East and West Boroughs were not laid out as a natural development from the town centre; rather, their origin is in a rival market set up in opposition to the Deanery.

This market was the borough manor market of the de Lacy’s, which had its own court, and it is recorded that this manor was involved in a dispute with the manor of the Dean in 1236. The noted Dorset historian John Hutchins mentions that there were already burgage tenure properties and evidence of stalls by very early in the 13th century, so indicating the appearance of the Boroughs as a northerly appendage to the ecclesiastical hub. Then about 1300 John de Lacy’s son Henry staked a claim to hold a fair once a year with a weekly market on Sunday and Monday.

The part of the East Borough leading into the Square was originally a narrow winding street crowded with buildings and known as Black Lane. The area of the square was once occupied by a chapel called St. Peters, which was later demolished. The area of the High Street where it bends sharply just east of the Minster, was called Cheapside, though many other street names of the earlier Wimborne are now lost.

The third area of growth centered on a meadow just south west of the Minster long recorded on maps as The Leaze and belonging to Deans Court. This area lies between the Minster and the Stour, and superficially appeared not to have been developed. However, it had been noted that a lane branching from King Street grades into a holloway before ending abruptly some distance from the river, suggesting some main street access to a former residential area. Interestingly, this was indeed confirmed by excavations between 1961 and 1964, revealing the presence of streets and the platforms of houses or cottages extending to the Stour’s floodplain boundary. This evidence dated The Leaze as a borough to around 1200, but it was apparently abandoned by the mid 14th century.

The Black Death did much to halt any further expansion of the town by 1350, and this decease is likely to have been the cause of the desertion of The Leaze. Leprosy was also widespread in the district and a building was dedicated to St. Margaret as a hospital for lepers. In 1800 a document, seemingly to date from King John’s time, was discovered in a chest in St. Margaret’s Almhouses, which superceded the hospital on the site, stating that it was a building for the welfare of lepers.

In 1496 the Countess of Richmond and mother of Henry VII, Lady Margaret Beaufort, founded the grammar school which Elizabeth I re-endowed and which was re-named after her in 1562. Another parchment deed exists endowing a school in Wimborne in 1510, though churchwarden’s accounts at the Reformation indicate trouble and expense in the maintaining of this institution. The governors were then accused by royal commissioners of allowing the building to fall into dis-repair.

Poet Matthew Prior is believed to have been born in Priors Walk in 1664. Wimborne had an unenviable reputation for uncleanliness until 1800, by which time the town had largely been rebuilt. In 1758 the Market House opened in the Cornmarket. The first regular coach service from London to reach here started in 1772, when the fare was £1.4s for the 14-hour journey. In more recent times the smuggler Isaac Gulliver and writer Thomas Hardy lived in Wimborne for a time and it is believed that the memorial to Gulliver in the Minster was the inspiration for the characters Snodgrass and Wardell in the Pickwick Papers. By the 19th century the parish covered 12,000 acres.

In 1915 Canon Fletcher and a doctor, Sir Kaye Le Flem, were sorting archive documents in the Minster library when they stumbled upon hitherto lost churchwardens accounts for 1403 and 1475. The documents revealed that at the time they were written the people of Wimborne were paying rent to the church as the landlords of the property they occupied, as well as burial fees.

The Parish of Glanvilles Wootton

Formerly known as Wootton Glanville, the name of this small village community in north-central Dorset preferentially became Glanvilles Wootton in conjunction with boundary changes that took place in 1985. A former parochial division of Cerne, the parish now comes under the North Dorset Local Authority, and commonly shares boundaries with the parishes of Buckland Newton, Pulham, Holwell, Holnest and Minterne.

Wootton is situated on the B3146, approximately 12 miles north of Dorchester and 7 miles south east of Sherborne in the Cerne valley area, where the rich clay pastureland of the Blackmore Vale grades south-eastwards into the chalk downland of the Dorset Heights.

The earliest visible relic of human occupation of any magnitude within the parish is Dungeon Hill, an Iron Age fort and later Roman camp lying south east of the village.A Bronze Age Celt (axe or palstave) has been unearthed on Newland Common and also a very long iron spur as well as some Spanish and monastic coins, though prehistoric burials may be present.

Before the Norman Conquest Wootton was a possession of the Abbot of Middletun,then having 16 acres of meadow and four of pasture, but at Domesday it was held by William de Braiose. The earliest Lords of the Manor were the Mauger family.

Before the time of Henry 111, Henry de Glanvyll held two virgates of land as a free tenant of the Abbot. The name of Wootton appears to derive from the“Wideton(e)” of Domeday, meaning a woody place, whilst “Glanville” is the modern form of de Glanvyll or Glanvill, the name of the manorial family who held the parish in the 14th century.

The nave and chancel of the Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin were re-ordered in 1876 by G.R.Crickmay with assistance from Thomas Hardy. During this restoration it was found that subsidence of the north wall of the nave was due to it having been built over a line of ancient coffins.

Today the parish has an area of 1,705 acres (690 hectares), but in 1865 its area was 1,665 acres (674 ha). It is sub-divided into the two tythings of Wootton and Newland; a number of hamlets or farmsteads lie within its borders as possible former manors of the mother church. These include Newlands, Osehill Green and – most famously – Round Chimneys, the farmhouse of which became the later home of the first Winston Churchill and the birthplace of his son, John, first Duke of Marlborough.

The area’s soil is noted for being very favourable for growing timber, and many of the hedges have been thickly planted with oak and elm. Near Wootton Manor house there is also a fine grove of tall mature elms. By the time of the historian John Hutchins in the 18th century the village had a dispersed settlement pattern with cottages and houses occupied mainly by farmers and labourers. Only a few cottages remained as leasehold. The main agricultural activity of the parish has traditionally been sheep and dairying on rich pastureland divided into several dairy farms. In the 19th century the villagers were sending butter produced from milk to market in London via Sherborne.

Other notable early buildings are the Elizabethan manor houses of Wootton and Round Chimneys. The latter underwent a period of dereliction, but has more recently been restored in a more truncated form. Most homes in the village today are either recent or 19th century; there is a farm with a barn and a cottage with a half-hatch door called “The Smithy”, both dating from 1874.

Wootton formerly possessed two public houses: The New Inn and The Pure Drop Inn, but both of these ceased trading and have since been converted into private residences. The Post Office also has been closed and is now a private cottage. There is however a small public hall still in use near the centre of the village.

As originally planned, the laying of the Yeovil – Dorchester branch railway line was to have passed through the village, but a local landowner forcefully persuaded the planners to lay the line five miles to the west. He did however,plant several Douglas Firs in his wood.

Glanvilles Wootton and in particular the Churchill’s manor house, Round Chimneys, is of significance as it later became the home of James Charles Dale and his son Charles William Dale, noted entomologists who recorded the history and insect life of the parish. In addition James Charles Dale was the first to describe the Lulworth Skipper butterly from a specimen captured at Durdle Door in 1832.

The village is also thehome of former Country Life magazine columnist David Edelsten, author of Dorset Diaries, and landscape architect Amanda Patton, who beat 3,500 other competitors to first prize in a National Horticultural Society garden photography competition.

Changes were made to this article on 12th April 2013 Ed.