Tarrant Hinton 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 the

county A county is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposes Chambers Dictionary, L. Brookes (ed.), 2005, Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, Edinburgh in certain modern nations. The term is derived from the Old French ...

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 , ...

in southern

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 ...

. It is situated in the Tarrant Valley, approximately northeast of

Blandford Forum Blandford Forum ( ), commonly Blandford, is a market town in Dorset, England, sited by the River Stour about northwest of Poole. It was the administrative headquarters of North Dorset District until April 2019, when this was abolished and it ...

. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 160. The village's name appears in medieval sources. In 935, King

Æthelstan Æthelstan or Athelstan (; ang, Æðelstān ; on, Aðalsteinn; ; – 27 October 939) was King of the Anglo-Saxons from 924 to 927 and King of the English from 927 to his death in 939. He was the son of King Edward the Elder and his fir ...

granted land at Tarrant Hinton to the nuns of

Shaftesbury Abbey Shaftesbury Abbey was an abbey that housed nuns in Shaftesbury, Dorset. It was founded in about 888, and dissolved in 1539 during the English Reformation by the order of Thomas Cromwell, minister to King Henry VIII. At the time it was the second ...

under condition that they would pray hard for the king.Studies in the Early History of Shaftesbury Abbey. Dorset County Council, 1999 The village no longer has a public house, shop or post office, but it has a medieval parish church and a newly rebuilt village hall. In 2001 the

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

of Tarrant Hinton was grouped with nine other surrounding parishes to form the Chase

Benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

in the Anglican Diocese of Salisbury. Tarrant Hinton Church - geograph

Tarrant Hinton is well known as the location of the

Great Dorset Steam Fair The Great Dorset Steam Fair (abbreviated GDSF, and since 2010 also known as The National Heritage Show) is an annual show featuring steam-powered vehicles and machinery. It now covers and runs for five days. This used to be from the Wednesday ...

, which is annually visited by some 200,000 people. There is a local church benefice newsletter published regularly called the Tarrant Times.

Governance

Tarrant Hinton parish falls under the Dorset Council ward of Hill Forts and Upper Tarrants, and the parliamentary constituency of North Dorset. The current MP (since 2015) is

Simon Hoare Simon James Hoare (born 28 June 1969) is a British Conservative Party politician. He has been the Member of Parliament (MP) for North Dorset since May 2015. Education Hoare was educated at the Bishop Hannon High School, Cardiff, a Roman Cat ...

of the Conservative Party.

References

External links

Tarrant Hinton Village website

Great Dorset Steam Fair official site

BBC Steam Fair site (2005)
Villages in Dorset {{Dorset-geo-stub