Hooke is a small 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

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesChambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

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 ...

in southern

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, situated about northeast of the town of

Bridport Bridport is a market town in Dorset, England, inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the Asker. Its origins are Saxon and it has a long history as a rope-making centre. On the coast and withi ...

. It is sited in the

valley A valley is an elongated low area often running between Hill, hills or Mountain, mountains, which will typically contain a river or stream running from one end to the other. Most valleys are formed by erosion of the land surface by rivers ...

of the short

River Hooke The River Hooke is a small river in the county of Dorset in southern England. It runs from its source at Toller Whelme through the villages and hamlets of Hooke, Kingcombe, Toller Porcorum and Toller Fratrum to join the River Frome at Maiden Ne ...

, a tributary of the River Frome, amongst the

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 ...

hills of the

Dorset Downs The Dorset Downs are an area of chalk downland in the centre of the county Dorset in south west England. The downs are the most western part of a larger chalk formation which also includes (from west to east) Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, Ham ...

. In the 2011 census the parish had a

population Population typically refers to the number of people in a single area, whether it be a city or town, region, country, continent, or the world. Governments typically quantify the size of the resident population within their jurisdiction using a ...

of 157. Rampisham Down, the hill immediately northeast of the village, is the site of a transmitter station operated by

VT Communications VT Communications was a part of VT Group plc. VT Communications was essentially the company formed from the privatisation of the BBC World Service transmitter sites. It was initially named Merlin Communications, then, after acquisition by VT, ...

, broadcasting long-range

radio Radio is the technology of signaling and communicating using radio waves. Radio waves are electromagnetic waves of frequency between 30 hertz (Hz) and 300 gigahertz (GHz). They are generated by an electronic device called a transmit ...

signals for clients including

BBC World Service The BBC World Service is an international broadcasting, international broadcaster owned and operated by the BBC, with funding from the Government of the United Kingdom, British Government through the Foreign Secretary, Foreign Secretary's o ...

. The outskirts of the village are home to Hooke Court and its surrounding parklands. Originally built in 1407 by Humphrey Stafford, the Court was extended in 1609 by the Marquis of Winchester. To the southwest of the village are Warren Hill and the woods of

Hooke Park Hooke Park is a 142 hectare woodland in Dorset, South West England located near the town of Beaminster and within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The site is designated as ancient woodland and historically comprised a deer hunting ...

on its western flanks.Ordnance Survey Landranger 1:50,000 series

References

External links

Villages in Dorset {{Dorset-geo-stub