Stoke Abbott 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 west
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 ...
, west of
Beaminster
Beaminster ( ) is a town and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the Dorset Council administrative area approximately northwest of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in a bowl-shaped valley near the source of the small River ...
. In 2013 the estimated population of the parish was 190.
[
The author ]Ralph Wightman
Ralph Wightman (26 July 1901 – 28 May 1971) was an English lecturer, journalist, author, and radio and television broadcaster.
He wrote many books on farming and the countryside and in the 1950s and 1960s became a well-known national figure, esp ...
, agriculturist, broadcaster, and native of Dorset, described the village as "a beautiful place of deep lanes, orchards and old houses, with a church of quiet charm", and, in a similar vein, 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 ...
in 1906 considered it "as pretty a village as any in Dorset".
On Waddon Hill to the northwest of the village are the remains of earthworks of an early settlement, consisting of a low bank wide and traces of a ditch, though historic quarrying around the hill may have destroyed more. Mid-1st-century Roman
Roman or Romans most often refers to:
*Rome, the capital city of Italy
*Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD
*Roman people, the people of ancient Rome
*'' Epistle to the Romans'', shortened to ''Romans'', a lette ...
and Romano-British
The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...
military artefacts were found on the hill's southern slopes in 1876–8.Domesday Book
Domesday Book () – the Middle English spelling of "Doomsday Book" – is a manuscript record of the "Great Survey" of much of England and parts of Wales completed in 1086 by order of King William I, known as William the Conqueror. The manus ...
in 1086 the village was recorded as Stoche and had 32 households.
The parish church of St Mary the Virgin has 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 ...
origins but has been altered and added to over the centuries. The 12th-century font is notable.[ The poet William Crowe was rector here between 1782 and 1786; at the end of his incumbency he published his most well known piece, ''Lewesdon Hill'', about the hill to the west of the village.]Dean of Hereford
The Dean of Hereford is the head (''primus inter pares'' – first among equals) and chair of the chapter of canons, the ruling body of Hereford Cathedral. The dean and chapter are based at the ''Cathedral Church of Blessed Virgin Mary and St Eth ...
, was incumbent at Stoke Abbott for a time.
References
External links
Villages in Dorset
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