Pentridge is a village and former
civil parish, now in the parish of
Sixpenny Handley and Pentridge, in the
English county
The counties of England are areas used for different purposes, which include administrative, geographical, cultural and political demarcation. The term "county" is defined in several ways and can apply to similar or the same areas used by each ...
of
Dorset, lying in the north-east of the county within the
East Dorset administrative district. It is situated on the edge of
Cranborne Chase down a dead-end minor lane just south of the
A354 road
The A354 is a primary route in England which runs from Salisbury in Wiltshire to Easton on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, a total distance of . From Salisbury the road crosses Cranborne Chase. At Woodyates the road follows the route of Acklin ...
between the towns of
Blandford Forum
Blandford Forum ( ), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour about northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this ...
(ten miles to the south-west) and
Salisbury (twelve miles to the northeast). In 2001 it had a
population of 215. The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 2015 and merged with
Sixpenny Handley to form Sixpenny Handley and Pentridge.
The village name derives from the
Celtic
Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to:
Language and ethnicity
*pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia
**Celts (modern)
*Celtic languages
**Proto-Celtic language
* Celtic music
*Celtic nations
Sports Fo ...
''pen'' ("hill") and ''twrch'' ("boar"), and thus means "hill of the wild boar"; its existence was first recorded (as "Pentric") in the eighth century, eighty years before the birth of
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...
.
The village is located amongst many
Neolithic,
Roman and
Saxon
The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic
*
*
*
*
peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...
earthworks, notably
Bokerley Dyke, a long defensive ditch which was dug by the
Romano-British to keep out the Saxon invaders.
Nearby is
Pentridge Hill, formed by a band of more
resistant chalk than the surrounding land.
References
External links
Census data
Villages in Dorset
Former civil parishes in Dorset
East Dorset District
Populated places disestablished in 2015
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