Motcombe 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 authorit ...
in north
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. Covering an area of , ...
,
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 ...
. It lies about north 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 ...
. It is sited on
Kimmeridge clay
The Kimmeridge Clay is a sedimentary deposit of fossiliferous marine clay which is of Late Jurassic to lowermost Cretaceous age and occurs in southern and eastern England and in the North Sea. This rock formation is the major source rock for Nor ...
soil beneath hills at the edge of 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 th ...
. The parish is one of the largest in Dorset.
In the
2011 census the parish had 611 dwellings, 564 households and a population of 1,474.
In 1905
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 K ...
described Motcombe as "a hamlet of gardens at the foot of the hill" and wrote of the village houses that they "are facing all ways, as if they were shy of the road or were undecided which way to turn." The parish church of St Mary was rebuilt in 1846, although its font dates from
Norman
Norman or Normans may refer to:
Ethnic and cultural identity
* The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries
** People or things connected with the Norm ...
times.
[
On the south-west edge of the village is Motcombe Park. Within the park is Motcombe House, built in 1893 in Tudor style,][ and now home to Port Regis, a large private preparatory school.
Motcombe is within the Motcombe and Ham electoral ward, which also covers Ham, a neighbourhood of Gillingham to the west. The ward's population in the 2011 census was 3,216.] The nearest railway station is at Gillingham, although the line itself cuts through the outskirts of the village.
References
External links
Motcombe CE Primary School
Motcombe Village Website
Motcombe Community Shop
Villages in Dorset
Civil parishes in Dorset
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