Ashmore is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authority ...

in the

North Dorset North Dorset was a local government district in Dorset, England. It was largely rural, but included the towns of Blandford Forum, Gillingham, Shaftesbury, Stalbridge and Sturminster Newton. Much of North Dorset was in the River Stour vall ...

district of

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset (unitary authority), Dors ...

, England, southwest of

Salisbury Salisbury ( ) is a cathedral city in Wiltshire, England with a population of 41,820, at the confluence of the rivers Avon, Nadder and Bourne. The city is approximately from Southampton and from Bath. Salisbury is in the southeast of Wil ...

. The village is centred on a circular pond and has a church and several stone cottages and farms, many with

thatch Thatching is the craft of building a roof with dry vegetation such as straw, water reed, sedge (''Cladium mariscus''), rushes, heather, or palm branches, layering the vegetation so as to shed water away from the inner roof. Since the bulk of ...

ed roofs. It is the highest village in the county with the contour passing close to the village church (although the north side of the town of Shaftesbury, Dorset, is slightly higher at ). The pond or "mere" gave the village its original name of "Ash-mere".North Dorset District Council,''North Dorset Official District Guide'', Home Publishing Co. Ltd.,c.1983. p30 In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 188.

History

Three

round barrows A round barrow is a type of tumulus and is one of the most common types of archaeological monuments. Although concentrated in Europe, they are found in many parts of the world, probably because of their simple construction and universal purpose. ...

have been found in the parish: two barrows south of the village near Well Bottom, and one west of the village near the boundary with the village of

Fontmell Magna Fontmell Magna is a village and civil parish in north Dorset, England. It is situated in the Blackmore Vale, close to the chalk hills of Cranborne Chase, on the A350 road south of Shaftesbury and north of Blandford Forum. In the 2011 census ...

; this latter barrow was excavated in the 19th century and bones were recovered. Ashmore may have been the site of a

Neolithic The Neolithic period, or New Stone Age, is an Old World archaeological period and the final division of the Stone Age. It saw the Neolithic Revolution, a wide-ranging set of developments that appear to have arisen independently in several parts ...

market place or settlement. The

Roman road Roman roads ( la, viae Romanae ; singular: ; meaning "Roman way") were physical infrastructure vital to the maintenance and development of the Roman state, and were built from about 300 BC through the expansion and consolidation of the Roman Re ...

from Bath to

Badbury Rings Badbury Rings is an Iron Age hill fort and Scheduled Monument in east Dorset, England. It was in the territory of the Durotriges. In the Roman era a temple was located immediately west of the fort, and there was a Romano-British town known as ''Vi ...

passes through the east of the parish. The situation of the village is similar to

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, a ...

sites in the area, and there may have been a military camp and trading post in the area. It is possible that Ashmore may have been a Romano-British village that has been occupied without a break up to the present day; the parish church is sited West of the pond towards the edge of the village, which could indicate that the village pre-dated the church and Christianity. In 1086 Ashmore was recorded in the

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 manusc ...

as "Aisemare"; it had 24 households, 7

ploughland The carucate or carrucate ( lat-med, carrūcāta or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms ...

s and of meadow. It was in

Cranborne Hundred Cranborne Hundred was a hundred in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes: *Ashmore * Belchalwell (divided between Okeford Fitzpaine and Fifehead Neville 1884) *Cranborne (part) * East Woodyates (created 1858) * Edmondsh ...

and had a value of £15 to the lord of the manor, who was King William. Until 1859 Ashmore had an

open field system The open-field system was the prevalent agricultural system in much of Europe during the Middle Ages and lasted into the 20th century in Russia, Iran, and Turkey. Each manor or village had two or three large fields, usually several hundred acre ...

; the three fields—North Field to the north, and Sandpit Fields and Broadridge to the south—were roughly equal in size and covered an area of . At the same time there was also a considerable area of enclosed fields, covering in 1590.

Geography

Ashmore parish is situated on the hills of

Cranborne Chase Cranborne Chase () is an area of central southern England, straddling the counties Dorset, Hampshire and Wiltshire. It is part of the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). The area is dominated by, ...

southeast of

Shaftesbury Shaftesbury () is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England. It is situated on the A30 road, west of Salisbury, near the border with Wiltshire. It is the only significant hilltop settlement in Dorset, being built about above sea level on a ...

and north of

Blandford Forum Blandford Forum ( ), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour about northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this ...

. The underlying geology is

chalk Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Chalk ...

, overlain by clay-with-

flint Flint, occasionally flintstone, is a sedimentary cryptocrystalline form of the mineral quartz, categorized as the variety of chert that occurs in chalk or marly limestone. Flint was widely used historically to make stone tools and start fir ...

s in the south and southeast. The village, which at above sea level is the highest in Dorset, is sited on a spur of land between

dry valley A dry valley may develop on many kinds of permeable rock, such as limestone and chalk, or sandy terrains that do not regularly sustain surface water flow. Such valleys do not hold surface water because it sinks into the permeable bedrock. There ...

s which drain south and southwest. All of Ashmore parish is within the

Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs is an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB) covering of Dorset, Hampshire, Somerset and Wiltshire. It is the sixth largest AONB in England. The area was designated as an AONB in 1981 and confirmed i ...

Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty An Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB; , AHNE) is an area of countryside in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland, that has been designated for conservation due to its significant landscape value. Areas are designated in recognition of thei ...

(AONB). The nearest rail link is from the village at

Tisbury railway station Tisbury railway station serves the village of Tisbury in Wiltshire, England. It is currently managed by South Western Railway and is on the West of England Main Line, down the line from . History The Salisbury and Yeovil Railway (S&YR) open ...

and the nearest air link (

Bournemouth International Airport Bournemouth Airport (previously known as Hurn Airport and Bournemouth International Airport) is an airport located north-northeast of Bournemouth, in southern England. The site opened as RAF Hurn in 1941, but was transferred to civil contr ...

) is away. Ashmore St Nicholas church

Church and Chapel

The parish church of St. Nicholas is about 100 metres west of the village pond, west of High Street. Its chancel arch is said to date from the 13th century and it was rebuilt in 1874. On the opposite side of the High Street is a Wesleyan chapel which dates from 1855.

Demography

In the 2011 census the parish had 97 dwellings, 87 households and a population of 188. In the first national census in 1891 the village had a population of 228.

Culture

midsummer Midsummer is a celebration of the season of summer usually held at a date around the summer solstice. It has pagan pre-Christian roots in Europe. The undivided Christian Church designated June 24 as the feast day of the early Christian mart ...

a celebration known as 'Filly Loo' (or 'Filleigh Loo') takes place around Ashmore pond, with a

Green Man The Green Man is a legendary being primarily interpreted as a symbol of rebirth, representing the cycle of new growth that occurs every spring. The Green Man is most commonly depicted in a sculpture, or other representation of a face which is ...

, country dancing,

morris dance Morris dancing is a form of English folk dance. It is based on rhythmic stepping and the execution of choreographed figures by a group of dancers, usually wearing bell pads on their shins. Implements such as sticks, swords and handkerchiefs may ...

rs and live music. The event's ancient origins are mysterious but may have

pagan Paganism (from classical Latin ''pāgānus'' "rural", "rustic", later "civilian") is a term first used in the fourth century by early Christians for people in the Roman Empire who practiced polytheism, or ethnic religions other than Judaism. ...

influences; theories include that it celebrated either the pond's constancy as a water supply, the summer solstice, or the end of the cultivated filbert (hazelnut) harvest. The meaning of the name 'Filly Loo' has also attracted more than one explanation, including that it is

West Country The West Country (occasionally Westcountry) is a loosely defined area of South West England, usually taken to include all, some, or parts of the counties of Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Bristol, and, less commonly, Wiltshire, Gloucesters ...

dialect for 'uproar', a corruption of the French 'La Fille de l'Eau', ('maiden of the water'), or a corruption of 'Filbert Louis', a nickname of Louis Rideout, one of the historical instigators of the event. The event was revived in 1956 as a folk dance festival, and takes place on the Friday night nearest to Midsummer Day or the Feast of St. John the Baptist.

References

* Pitt-Rivers, Michael, 1968. ''Dorset''. London: Faber & Faber. * Taylor, Christopher, 1970. ''The Making of the Dorset Landscape''. London: Hodder & Stoughton.

External links

*
The Dorset Page: Ashmore
{{authority control Villages in Dorset