Batcombe is a small straggling

village A village is a human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet but smaller than a town with a population typically ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand. Although villages are often located in rural areas, the term urban v ...

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. Civil parishes can trace their origin to the ancient system of parishes, w ...

Dorset Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...

England England is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. It is located on the island of Great Britain, of which it covers about 62%, and List of islands of England, more than 100 smaller adjacent islands. It ...

, situated north-west of Dorchester below the northern scarp slope of the

Dorset Downs The Dorset Downs are an area of chalk downland in the centre of the county Dorset in south west England. The downs are the most western part of a larger chalk formation which also includes (from west to east) Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, ...

. The name Batcombe derives from the

Old English Old English ( or , or ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. It developed from the languages brought to Great Britain by Anglo-S ...

''Bata'', a man's name, and ''cumb'', meaning valley. In 1201 it was known as ''Batecumbe''. The local travel links are located from the village to Chetnole railway station and to

Bournemouth International Airport Bournemouth Airport (previously known as Hurn Airport and Bournemouth International Airport) is an international airport located north-northeast of Bournemouth, England. The site opened as RAF Hurn in 1941, but was transferred to civil cont ...

. The main road running through the village is Stile Way.

Dorset County Council Dorset County Council was the county council of Dorset in England. It was created in 1889 and abolished in 2019. Throughout its existence, the council was based in Dorchester. Bournemouth and Poole were made independent from the county counci ...

's 2013 mid-year estimate of the population of the civil parish was 120. The civil parish is served by High Stoy Parish Council, which also covers Hermitage and

Hilfield Hilfield is a small, scattered village and civil parish in west Dorset, England, situated under the scarp face of the Dorset Downs south of Sherborne. Dorset County Council's 2013 estimate of the parish population is 50. Hilfield parish chur ...

parishes.

Parish church

The church of St Mary Magdalene is on an ancient site. There has probably been a church there from the 11th century. The current building comprises a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and 15th-century tower. The interior contains a

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

that has a

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 9th and 10th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norma ...

column (made from Ham Hill stone) with a cube-shaped limestone basin (probably made from Portesham stone); the basin is probably older than the column. The church interior also contains an elaborate stone screen, which is also made from Ham Hill stone.

Cross-in-Hand

Above the village rises

Batcombe Down Batcombe Down () is an 18.6 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Dorset, England: SSSI notification, notified in 1952. Sources English Nature citation sheet for the site(accessed 29 August 2006) External links English Natur ...

and, further east, Gore Hill, near the top of which is a small stone pillar known as the Cross-in-Hand (or Cross and Hand). The pillar, a Grade II listed structure and a

Scheduled Ancient Monument In the United Kingdom, a scheduled monument is a nationally important archaeological site or historic building, given protection against unauthorised change. The various pieces of legislation that legally protect heritage assets from damage, visu ...

, is a little over in height and may date from before the

Norman Conquest The Norman Conquest (or the Conquest) was the 11th-century invasion and occupation of England by an army made up of thousands of Normans, Norman, French people, French, Flemish people, Flemish, and Bretons, Breton troops, all led by the Du ...

, as do other shafts such as the

Pillar of Eliseg The Pillar of Eliseg – also known as Elise's Pillar or Croes Elisedd in Welsh – stands near Valle Crucis Abbey, Denbighshire, Wales rid reference It was erected by Cyngen ap Cadell (died 855), king of Kingdom of Powys, Powys in honour o ...

. At one time there may have been a hand carved on one face, but nothing is visible today, though the pillar has acquired stories about images of a ghostly hand being seen grasping a bowl at its top.

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

used the pillar in his novel ''

Tess of the D'Urbervilles ''Tess of the d'Urbervilles: A Pure Woman'' is the twelfth published novel by English author Thomas Hardy. It initially appeared in a Book censorship, censored and Serialized novel, serialised version, published by the British illustrated newsp ...

'', in a scene in which Alec d'Urberville instructs Tess to "put your hand upon that stone hand, and swear that you will never tempt me—by your charms or ways." The pillar also features in Hardy's poem "The Lost Pyx".

Manor house

The Minterne family was for a long time the Lords of the Manor and Newlands Farm was the

manor house A manor house was historically the main residence of the lord of the manor. The house formed the administrative centre of a manor in the European feudal system; within its great hall were usually held the lord's manorial courts, communal mea ...

between the 16th and 18th centuries. The front roadside wall of the farmhouse has an

ashlar Ashlar () is a cut and dressed rock (geology), stone, worked using a chisel to achieve a specific form, typically rectangular in shape. The term can also refer to a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, a ...

hamstone Hamstone is a honey-coloured building stone from Ham Hill, Somerset, England. It is a well-cemented medium to coarse grained limestone characterised by marked bedding planes of clay inclusions and less well-cemented material which weather dif ...

archway dating from 1622.

Folklore

The parish church is the subject of one of Dorset's more curious tales, in which the local squire—who was known as ' Conjuring Minterne'—once rode his horse off Batcombe Hill and knocked off one of the pinnacles on the tower. He dabbled in magic and was regarded with a great deal of fear and superstition locally. After setting off to ride over steep Batcombe Hill one day, he suddenly remembered he had left his magic book open on the table, where his servants might find it. To save going back by the road, he turned his horse round and spurred it to attempt a massive leap over the church, knocking off the pinnacle as he soared clear over the tower. The fearful villagers were afraid that they might offend the

devil A devil is the mythical personification of evil as it is conceived in various cultures and religious traditions. It is seen as the objectification of a hostile and destructive force. Jeffrey Burton Russell states that the different conce ...

by repairing the damage, so for a hundred years they left it alone. When it was repaired, they repaired it at a crooked angle. It is said that Minterne vowed that he would be buried neither in nor out of the church, so he was buried half in and half out of the Minterne Chapel. Much of the church was rebuilt by

John Hicks Sir John Richard Hicks (8 April 1904 – 20 May 1989) was a British economist. He is considered one of the most important and influential economists of the twentieth century. The most familiar of his many contributions in the field of economics ...

in 1864, which resulted in the loss of the Minterne chapel. The memorial tablets were repositioned on the north side of the tower. A "conjurer" used to be an important character in a

village, and was generally of good reputation. He was supposed to be gifted with supernatural power, which he exercised for good, and by his incantations and ceremonies he cured many sicknesses.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Dorset Civil parishes in Dorset