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Portesham
Portesham, sometimes also spelled Portisham, is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southwest England, situated in the Dorset Council administrative area approximately northwest of Weymouth, southwest of the county town Dorchester, and northeast of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site at Chesil Beach. The parish is quite large, covering several outlying hamlets and what were once their manors. In the 2011 census it had a population of 685 in 316 households and 342 dwellings. Description In 1905 Sir Frederick Treves described the village's site as being ''"in a hollow among the downs"'' so that it was ''"too low to command a view of the sea"'', but nevertheless ''"in a south-westerly gale the roar of the breakers on the Chesil Beach can be heard in the village."'' The houses in Portesham comprise a mix of old grey stone cottages and more modern buildings in various styles. A stream runs alongside the main street. History The area around Portesham is ric ...
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Portesham Railway Station
Portesham was a small railway station serving the village of Portesham in the west of the English county of Dorset. Location The station was sited across the fields from village not far from an underbridge carrying the line across the Weymouth to Abbotsbury road at a skew angle. Just to the east of the station an incline provided access to quarries near the Hardy Monument. History The station was opened on 9 November 1885 by the Abbotsbury Railway when it opened the line from to on the Great Western Railway (GWR) (former Wilts, Somerset and Weymouth Railway line). The station had a single platform and a passing loop. The goods shed was opposite the platform and functioned for the life of the branch. The station was the site of a GWR camp coach Camping coaches were holiday accommodation offered by many railway companies in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland from the 1930s. The coaches were old passenger vehicles no longer suitable for use in trains, which we ...
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Abbotsbury
Abbotsbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. The settlement is in the unitary authority of Dorset about inland from the English Channel coast. The village, including Chesil Beach, the swannery and subtropical gardens, is owned by the Ilchester Estate, which owns of land in Dorset. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 481. The coastline within the parish of Abbotsbury includes a section of long Chesil Beach that is part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site. Abbotsbury is known for its swannery, subtropical gardens and surviving abbey buildings, including St Catherine's Chapel, a 14th-century pilgrimage chapel that stands on a hill between the village and the coast. Geography Abbotsbury village is in the Dorset unitary authority administrative area, situated amidst hills about inland from the English Channel coast at Chesil Beach, an barrier beach which south of the village encloses The Fleet, a bracki ...
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Hell Stone
The Hell Stone is a badly-restored Neolithic dolmen on Portesham Hill in Dorset, England. It is around north of the village of Portesham, and approximately southeast of the Valley of Stones. Description The Hell Stone is situated at the head of a dry valley system in the parish of Portesham. The burial chamber is at the southeast end of a rectangular mound. The mound is long and orientated northwest to southeast. The mound tapers from in width from the southeast end to the northwest end, and it is high. The chamber was badly restored in 1866 when eight men re-erected the stones, arranging them radially "rather like the slices of a cake" and supporting a large capstone.Glyn E. Daniel (1950), ''The Prehistoric Chamber Tombs of England and Wales'', page 93. Cambridge University Press. The chamber may have been, originally, a long rectangular one. A drystone wall runs across the mound, and a pond for watering livestock was dug close to the southeast end of the mound in moder ...
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Abbotsbury Abbey
Abbotsbury Abbey, dedicated to Saint Peter, was a Benedictine monastery in the village of Abbotsbury in Dorset, England. The abbey was founded in the 11th century by King Cnut's thegn Orc and his wife Tola, who handsomely endowed the monastery with lands in the area. The abbey prospered and became a local centre of power, controlling eight manor houses and villages. During the later Middle Ages, the abbey suffered much misfortune. In the time of the dissolution of the monasteries, the last abbot surrendered the abbey and the site became the property of Sir Giles Strangways. Today, a small part of the former Abbey estate, including the abbey's remains, and those of the nearby St Catherine's Chapel, are in the guardianship of English Heritage. Foundation The first reference to the site of Abbotsbury may be in a charter of King Edmund (r. 939–946) recording a grant of five hides of land at ''Abbedesburi'' to the thegn Sigewulf.Keynes, "The lost cartulary of Abbotsbury", p. 207 ...
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Uggescombe Hundred
Uggescombe Hundred was a hundred in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes: *Abbotsbury * Chilcombe *Fleet *Hawkchurch (part) *Kingston Russell *Langton Herring *Littlebredy * Litton Cheney *Portesham * Puncknowle *Swyre * Weymouth (part of Wyke Regis; a borough from 1252) *Winterbourne Steepleton Winterbourne Steepleton is a village and civil parish in south west Dorset, England, situated in a winterbourne valley west of Dorchester, next to the village of Winterbourne Abbas. The name of the village derives from its site next to a sea ... See also List of hundreds in Dorset Sources *Boswell, Edward, 1833: ''The Civil Division of the County of Dorset'' (published on CD by Archive CD Books Ltd, 1992) * Hutchins, John, ''History of Dorset'', vols 1-4 (3rd ed 1861–70; reprinted by EP Publishing, Wakefield, 1973) *Mills, A. D., 1977, 1980, 1989: ''Place Names of Dorset'', parts 1–3. English Place Name Society: Survey of English Place Names vols ...
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Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by the Latin name ''Liber de Wintonia'', meaning "Book of Winchester", where it was originally kept in the royal treasury. The '' Anglo-Saxon Chronicle'' states that in 1085 the king sent his agents to survey every shire in England, to list his holdings and dues owed to him. Written in Medieval Latin, it was highly abbreviated and included some vernacular native terms without Latin equivalents. The survey's main purpose was to record the annual value of every piece of landed property to its lord, and the resources in land, manpower, and livestock from which the value derived. The name "Domesday Book" came into use in the 12th century. Richard FitzNeal wrote in the '' Dialogus de Scaccario'' ( 1179) that the bo ...
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Litton Cheney
Litton Cheney is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in south-west England. It lies west of the county town Dorchester. It is sited beneath chalk hills in the valley of the small River Bride. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 359. On Pins Knoll, to the west of the village, was once an Iron Age settlement, excavated in 1959. On the same site, in the 4th century, there was also a Romano-British building. The parish church of St Mary was substantially restored in 1878, though it retains features—notably the tower, chancel arch and parts of the nave and porch—from the 14th and 15th centuries and has a font bowl which is probably Norman; the site originated at this time or earlier. From 1953 until 1979, The Old Rectory was the home of noted English engraver, designer, typographer and painter Reynolds Stone. Prehistoric monuments In 1936, the archaeologists Stuart Piggott, Cecily Piggott, and W. E. V. Young came upon what they suggested wa ...
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Electoral Ward
A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to the area (e.g. William Morris Ward in the London Borough of Waltham Forest, England). It is common in the United States for wards to simply be numbered. Origins The word “ward”, for an electoral subdivision, appears to have originated in the Wards of the City of London, where gatherings for each ward known as “wardmotes” have taken place since the 12th century. The word was much later applied to divisions of other cities and towns in England and Wales and Ireland. In parts of northern England, a ''ward'' was an administrative subdivision of a county, very similar to a hundred in other parts of England. Present day In Australia, Canada, New Zealand, Sri Lanka, South Africa, the United Kingdom, and the United States, wards are ...
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Upwey, Dorset
Upwey is a suburb of Weymouth in south Dorset, England. The suburb is situated on the B3159 road in the Wey valley. The area was formerly a village until it was absorbed into the Weymouth built-up area. It is located four miles north of the town centre in the outer suburbs. During the Census 2001 the combined population of Upwey and neighbouring Broadwey was 4,349. The village has a 13th-century parish church, dedicated to Saint Laurence, and a manor house, Upwey Manor, which was owned by the Gould family. A disc barrow is located above the village on the Ridgeway at map reference . The former United Reformed Church was built in 1880–81 and closed in 1992. The River Wey rises at the foot of the chalk ridge of the South Dorset Downs, which rise above Upwey to the north, and flows through the village. The source is known as the Upwey wishing well and was a tourist attraction as far back as the Victorian era. There is now a tea room at the site, complete with mature ...
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First World War
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fighting occurring throughout Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Pacific, and parts of Asia. An estimated 9 million soldiers were killed in combat, plus another 23 million wounded, while 5 million civilians died as a result of military action, hunger, and disease. Millions more died in genocides within the Ottoman Empire and in the 1918 influenza pandemic, which was exacerbated by the movement of combatants during the war. Prior to 1914, the European great powers were divided between the Triple Entente (comprising France, Russia, and Britain) and the Triple Alliance (containing Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Tensions in the Balkans came to a head on 28 June 1914, following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdi ...
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Limekiln
A lime kiln is a kiln used for the calcination of limestone ( calcium carbonate) to produce the form of lime called quicklime (calcium oxide). The chemical equation for this reaction is : CaCO3 + heat → CaO + CO2 This reaction can take place at anywhere above 840 °C (1544 °F), but is generally considered to occur at 900 °C(1655 °F) (at which temperature the partial pressure of CO2 is 1 atmosphere), but a temperature around 1000 °C (1832 °F) (at which temperature the partial pressure of CO2 is 3.8 atmospheres) is usually used to make the reaction proceed quickly.Parkes, G.D. and Mellor, J.W. (1939). ''Mellor's Modern Inorganic Chemistry'' London: Longmans, Green and Co. Excessive temperature is avoided because it produces unreactive, "dead-burned" lime. Slaked lime ( calcium hydroxide) can be formed by mixing quicklime with water. Early lime use Because it is so readily made by heating limestone, lime must have been known from the ear ...
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Purbeck Limestone
Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology Stratigraphically these limestone beds lie towards the top of the Durlston Formation of the Purbeck Group. They were deposited during the Berriasian age of the Early Cretaceous epoch. Purbeck Marble is not a metamorphic rock, like a true marble, but is so-called because it can take a fine polish. Its characteristic appearance comes from densely packed shells of the freshwater snail ''Viviparus''. Sussex Marble is similar in type. The 'marble' is properly classified as a biomicrudite, as it consists of large clasts (the snail shells) in a fine-grained limestone mud matrix. The individual marble beds (also known as 'seams'), lie between layers of softer marine clays and mudstone, laid down during repeated marine ingressions. Some of the b ...
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