Osmington 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 ...

within

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, situated on the

Jurassic Coast The Jurassic Coast is a World Heritage Site on the English Channel coast of southern England. It stretches from Exmouth in East Devon to Studland Bay in Dorset, a distance of about , and was inscribed on the World Heritage List in mid-Decembe ...

north-east of Weymouth. In the 2011 census the parish—which includes the small settlements of Upton, Ringstead and

Osmington Mills Osmington Mills is a coastal hamlet in the English county of Dorset. It lies within the civil parish of Osmington northeast of Weymouth. Geology The coastline around Osmington Mills is part of Dorset's ''Jurassic Coast'', and fossils can be ...

—had a population of 673.

History

Evidence exists of

Bronze Age The Bronze Age is a historic period, lasting approximately from 3300 BC to 1200 BC, characterized by the use of bronze, the presence of writing in some areas, and other early features of urban civilization. The Bronze Age is the second pri ...

settlement in the area. The village's

written history Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world his ...

, however, begins in 940, when it is mentioned in a

charter A charter is the grant of authority or rights, stating that the granter formally recognizes the prerogative of the recipient to exercise the rights specified. It is implicit that the granter retains superiority (or sovereignty), and that the rec ...

. The oldest building in the village is the church, St. Osmund's, which was originally built in 1170, but has had alterations up to the 19th century. Residential buildings in the village date back to the 16th century. To the northwest of the village, on White Horse Hill, is the

Osmington White Horse __NOTOC__ The Osmington White Horse is a hill figure cut into the limestone of Osmington Hill just north of Weymouth in Dorset in 1808. It is in the South Dorset Downs in the parish of Osmington. The figure is of King George III riding his ...

, a large

hill figure A hill figure is a large visual representation created by cutting into a steep hillside and revealing the underlying geology. It is a type of geoglyph usually designed to be seen from afar rather than above. In some cases trenches are dug and r ...

dating from 1808. It represents

King George III George III (George William Frederick; 4 June 173829 January 1820) was King of Great Britain and of Ireland from 25 October 1760 until the union of the two kingdoms on 1 January 1801, after which he was King of the United Kingdom of Great Br ...

John Constable John Constable (; 11 June 1776 – 31 March 1837) was an English landscape painter in the Romanticism, Romantic tradition. Born in Suffolk, he is known principally for revolutionising the genre of landscape painting with his pictures of Dedha ...

(1776–1837), the leading English landscape artist, spent his honeymoon here in October 1816 and painted views of the local area. The Victoria and Albert Museum Catalogue of the Constable collection (Reynolds, G.(1973), HMSO, London) has in it 6 drawings of Osmington, Osmington Bay, Weymouth Bay and Portland as well as an oil painting of Weymouth Bay on millboard, thought to be an open-air sketch from his time on honeymoon. While in Osmington, Constable stayed at the home of his friend Rev. John Fisher, who had performed the wedding ceremony between Constable and his wife Maria Bicknell. Constable also drew 'View of Osmington and the Downs with the figure of George III on horseback at Sutton Poyntz'(Lot 93 in the Gregory sale, 20 July 1949). Talbot Hughes (1869–1942), the painter, collector and writer, lived in Osmington from 1913 until his death in 1942. He was buried on 9 February 1942 in the churchyard at St. Osmund's. The village has an unusual thatched bus shelter which was erected in memory of David Edward Parry-Jones, Lieutenant 1st Battalion

The Rifle Brigade The Rifle Brigade (The Prince Consort's Own) was an infantry rifle regiment of the British Army formed in January 1800 as the "Experimental Corps of Riflemen" to provide sharpshooters, scouts, and skirmishers. They were soon renamed the "Rifle ...

, who died in action near

Caen Caen (, ; nrf, Kaem) is a commune in northwestern France. It is the prefecture of the department of Calvados. The city proper has 105,512 inhabitants (), while its functional urban area has 470,000,World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

was so poor that large sections were condemned, has become affluent with a high proportion of professional and managerial residents (38.4% compared to a county average of 26.1% in 2001).Dorset Data Online : Osmington Parish Profile
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References

External links

Osmington local history

Osmington On-Line
— the Osmington website {{authority control Villages in Dorset Geography of Weymouth, Dorset