Stour Provost 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 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 (unitary authority), Dors ...
,
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 ...
, situated on the
River Stour between
Sturminster Newton
Sturminster Newton is a town and civil parish in the Blackmore Vale area of Dorset, England. It is situated on a low limestone ridge in a meander of the River Stour. The town is at the centre of a large dairy agriculture region, around which ...
and
Gillingham. In old writings it is usually spelled Stower Provost.
Stour Provost once constituted a
liberty
Liberty is the ability to do as one pleases, or a right or immunity enjoyed by prescription or by grant (i.e. privilege). It is a synonym for the word freedom.
In modern politics, liberty is understood as the state of being free within society fr ...
, containing only the parish itself. Today the civil parish includes the settlements of Woodville and
Stour Row to the east. In the
2011 census the civil parish had 235 households and a population of 579.
After the establishment of Stour Provost village near the River Stour, at least four smaller settlements were established in a piecemeal fashion from the 13th century – or perhaps earlier – in the
common land
Common land is land owned by a person or collectively by a number of persons, over which other persons have certain common rights, such as to allow their livestock to graze upon it, to collect Wood fuel, wood, or to cut turf for fuel.
A person ...
or "waste" further east, at Woodville and beyond. These small groups of farms, with their own irregular shaped fields, were separated by unenclosed "waste" probably until the 18th century, when it was
enclosed
Enclosure or Inclosure is a term, used in English landownership, that refers to the appropriation of "waste" or "common land" enclosing it and by doing so depriving commoners of their rights of access and privilege. Agreements to enclose land ...
and divided into rectilinear fields.
The nearest railway station is in neighbouring Gillingham, Dorset. Trains run on the Exeter to Waterloo line.
See also
*
List of liberties in Dorset
Liberty (division), Liberties were an administrative unit of local government in England from the Middle Ages to the nineteenth century, co-existing with the then operative system of hundred (division), hundreds and boroughs but independent of bot ...
References
External links
Villages in Dorset
Liberties of Dorset
{{Dorset-geo-stub