Kington Magna 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

Blackmore Vale The Blackmore Vale (; less commonly spelt ''Blackmoor'') is a vale, or wide valley, in north Dorset, and to a lesser extent south Somerset and southwest Wiltshire in southern England. Geography The vale is part of the Stour valley, part of t ...

area 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, about southwest of Gillingham.

History

The name Kington Magna means 'great King's Town'; it derives from ''cyne-'' (later ''cyning'') and ''tūn'',

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlement of Britain, Anglo ...

for 'royal estate or manor'. The affix ''magna'',

Latin Latin (, or , ) is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. Latin was originally a dialect spoken in the lower Tiber area (then known as Latium) around present-day Rome, but through the power of the ...

for great, was added to distinguish it from Little Kington, a smaller settlement nearby. In 1086 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 ...

these were recorded together in three entries as ''Chintone'', which had 27 households and a total taxable value of 13 geld units, and was in the

hundred 100 or one hundred (Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 and preceding 101. In medieval contexts, it may be described as the short hundred or five score in order to differentiate the English and Germanic use of "hundred" to de ...

of Gillingham. In 1243 it was recorded as Magna Kington. Most of the current buildings in the village are no older than the seventeenth century. In 1851 a

Primitive Methodist The Primitive Methodist Church is a Methodist Christian denomination with the holiness movement. It began in England in the early 19th century, with the influence of American evangelist Lorenzo Dow (1777–1834). In the United States, the Primiti ...

chapel was built in the village; it was on Chapel Hill, which runs parallel to Church Hill. In 1860 a pottery was established at Bye Farm, north of the main village; it manufactured tiles, drainpipes, bricks, and chimney and flower pots. The parish church of All Saints was

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian music musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004 by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard ...

and enlarged in 1862; most of the building, except for the late 15th-century west tower, was rebuilt. Near the church is a pond which was a

medieval In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the late 5th to the late 15th centuries, similar to the Post-classical, post-classical period of World history (field), global history. It began with t ...

fishpond.

Geography

The parish covers about and, as well as the main village, includes the small settlement of Nyland in the west. The main village is sited on the slopes of a

Corallian limestone The Corallian Group or Corallian Limestone is a geologic group in England. It is predominantly a coralliferous sedimentary rock, laid down in the Oxfordian stage of the Jurassic. It is a hard variety of "coral rag". Building stones from this geol ...

hill, overlooking the flat

Oxford Clay The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specifical ...

valley of the small River Cale, which drains into the Stour. In 1906

Sir Frederick Treves Sir Frederick Treves, 1st Baronet (15 February 1853 – 7 December 1923), was a prominent British surgeon, and an expert in anatomy. Treves was renowned for his surgical treatment of appendicitis, and is credited with saving the life of Ed ...

wrote in his ''Highways & Byways in Dorset'' that the village "straggles down hill like a small mountain stream."

Demography

In the 2011 census the parish had 180 dwellings, 169 households and a population of 389.

Transport

The nearest railway station is in Gillingham. Trains run on the Exeter to Waterloo line.

References

External links

{{Authority control Villages in Dorset