Minterne 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 authorit ...

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, situated midway between Dorchester and

Sherborne Sherborne is a market town and civil parish in north west Dorset, in South West England. It is sited on the River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, east of Yeovil. The parish includes the hamlets of Nether Coombe and Lower Clatcombe. ...

. 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 184. The village is sited near the source of the

River Cerne The River Cerne is a ten mile long river in Dorset, England, which rises in the Chalk hills of the Dorset Downs at Minterne Magna, between High Stoy and Dogbury Hill, flows down a valley through Cerne Abbas and Charminster, and flows into t ...

among 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. Ch ...

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, H ...

. Some of the highest points in Dorset, including

Telegraph Hill A telegraph hill is a hill or other natural elevation that is chosen as part of an optical telegraph system. Telegraph Hill may also refer to: England * A high point in the Haldon Hills, Devon * Telegraph Hill, Dorset, a hill in the Dorset Down ...

(267 m) and Dogbury Hill (248 m), are nearby. The church contains the tombs of several members of the Napier family, who were Lords of the Manor from c.1600 to 1765.

Minterne House

Minterne House is the ancestral home of the Digby family and earlier the Churchill family. The estate was once owned by the Abbey of Cerne from around the year 987 and after the dissolution of the monasteries around 1539 it was passed to

Winchester College Winchester College is a public school (fee-charging independent day and boarding school) in Winchester, Hampshire, England. It was founded by William of Wykeham in 1382 and has existed in its present location ever since. It is the oldest of ...

who in 1642 leased it to the

John Churchill General John Churchill, 1st Duke of Marlborough, 1st Prince of Mindelheim, 1st Count of Nellenburg, Prince of the Holy Roman Empire, (26 May 1650 – 16 June 1722 O.S.) was an English soldier and statesman whose career spanned the reign ...

father of the first Sir Winston Churchill (1620-88), then it was inherited by his son Charles who died without an heir so the house went to his wife's family the Goulds who sold it to Admiral Robert Digby in 1768. Robert Digby's brother was Henry the 7th Lord Digby who owned

Sherborne Castle Sherborne Castle is a 16th-century Tudor mansion southeast of Sherborne in Dorset, England, within the parish of Castleton. It stands in a park which formed a small part of the Digby estate. Old castle Sherborne Old Castle () is the ruin ...

. When Robert died in 1815 the house passed to his nephew Sir Henry Digby who later purchased the freehold from Winchester College in 1856. Sir Henry was a senior British naval officer, who served in the

French Revolutionary The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in November 1799. Many of its ideas are consider ...

and

Napoleonic Wars The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of major global conflicts pitting the French Empire and its allies, led by Napoleon I, against a fluctuating array of European states formed into various coalitions. It produced a period of Fren ...

in the

Royal Navy The Royal Navy (RN) is the United Kingdom's naval warfare force. Although warships were used by English and Scottish kings from the early medieval period, the first major maritime engagements were fought in the Hundred Years' War against ...

and it was his wealth that established the original manor house, the bulk of which came from

prize money Prize money refers in particular to naval prize money, usually arising in naval warfare, but also in other circumstances. It was a monetary reward paid in accordance with the prize law of a belligerent state to the crew of a ship belonging to ...

. In 1799 he had been given command of the frigate HMS ''Alcmene'', during which time he captured dozens of small merchant ships and had a hand in seizing the Spanish treasure frigates ''Santa Brigada'' and ''Thetis''. The resulting prize fund was one of the richest ever recorded, the sterling value of the cargo was calculated as not less than £618,040 in 1799 () Sir Henry's children

Jane Digby Jane Elizabeth Digby (3 April 1807 – 11 August 1881) was an English aristocrat, famed for her remarkable love life and lifestyle. She had four husbands and many lovers, including Lord Ellenborough, Governor-General of India, King Ludwig ...

, the noted adventuress and mistress of

Ludwig I of Bavaria en, Louis Charles Augustus , image = Joseph Karl Stieler - King Ludwig I in his Coronation Robes - WGA21796.jpg , caption = Portrait by Joseph Stieler, 1825 , succession=King of Bavaria , reign = , coronation ...

, was also raised there along with her brother

Edward Digby, 9th Baron Digby Edward St Vincent Digby, 9th Baron Digby (21 June 1809 – 16 October 1889), also 3rd Baron Digby in the Peerage of Great Britain, was a British peer. Biography Digby was the son of Admiral Sir Henry Digby, who fought at the Battle of Trafalgar ...

. In 1900 the house was found to be riddled with dry rot and was demolished and the current house, designed by

Leonard Stokes Leonard Aloysius Scott Stokes (1858 – 25 December 1925) was an English architect and artist. Leonard Stokes was born in Southport (then in Lancashire) in 1858 the son of Scott Nasmyth Stokes, a school inspector. He trained in London and tra ...

, was built. Pamela Digby Churchill Harriman, (1920–1997), daughter of Edward Digby, 11th Baron Digby, was raised at the manor house from 1920 to 1938, and lived there before her marriage to

Randolph Churchill Randolph Frederick Edward Spencer-Churchill (28 May 1911 – 6 June 1968) was an English journalist, writer, soldier, and politician. He served as Conservative Member of Parliament (MP) for Preston from 1940 to 1945. The only son of British ...

in 1939. Minterne House has a large

woodland garden A woodland garden is a garden or section of a garden that includes large trees and is laid out so as to appear as more or less natural woodland, though it is often actually an artificial creation. Typically it includes plantings of flowering shru ...

with many '' Rhododendron'' species, which runs in an elongated 'u' shape around the slopes of a small spur of land that stretches into the valley floor. Providing shade for the rhododendrons are many mature trees, including more unusual specimens such as ''

Davidia involucrata ''Davidia involucrata'', the dove-tree, handkerchief tree, pocket handkerchief tree, or ghost tree, is a medium-sized deciduous tree in the family Nyssaceae. It is the only living species in the genus ''Davidia''. It was previously included wi ...

'' ('handkerchief tree').

Notes

External links

{{authority control Villages in Dorset Woodland gardens