Fleet is a small, scattered

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 ...

in south

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 approximately west of Weymouth. It consists of the small settlements of East Fleet, West Fleet, Fleet House, and Fleet Common, all of which are close to the shore of The Fleet, a brackish lagoon behind

Chesil Beach Chesil Beach (also known as Chesil Bank) in Dorset, England, is one of three major shingle beach structures in Britain.A. P. Carr and M. W. L. Blackley, "Investigations Bearing on the Age and Development of Chesil Beach, Dorset, and the Associ ...

. The name "Fleet" is derived from ,

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 ...

for an inlet or estuary.

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 ...

estimated that the population of the civil parish was 60 in 2013. The

Great Storm of 1824 The Great Storm of 1824 (or Great Gale) was a hurricane force wind and storm surge that affected the south coast of England from 22 November 1824. The storm raged for two days. Nearly 100 people were believed to be killed across the counties of ...

caused waves to breach

, and many of the buildings in the village were destroyed, including the nave of the original parish church. An eye-witness described the event:

At six o'-clock on the morning of the 23rd I was standing with other boys by the gate near the cattle pound when I saw, rushing up the valley, the tidal wave, driven by a hurricane and bearing upon its crest a whole haystack and other debris from the fields below. We ran for our lives to Chickerell, and when we returned found that five houses had been swept away and the church was in ruins.

A new church,

Holy Trinity The Trinity (, from 'threefold') is the Christian doctrine concerning the nature of God, which defines one God existing in three, , consubstantial divine persons: God the Father, God the Son (Jesus Christ) and God the Holy Spirit, three ...

, was built a short distance inland and only the

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 ...

of the old one stands today. J. Meade Falkner's

smuggling Smuggling is the illegal transportation of objects, substances, information or people, such as out of a house or buildings, into a prison, or across an international border, in violation of applicable laws or other regulations. More broadly, soc ...

novel '' Moonfleet'' is set in the village. There is a brass memorial to Falkner in the old church, together with brass plate memorials to members of the Mohun family whose name was used in the novel. Moonfleet Manor Hotel is a Georgian building in the west of the parish on the shore of The Fleet, previously called Fleet House. The

bouncing bomb A bouncing bomb is a bomb designed to bounce to a target across water in a calculated manner to avoid obstacles such as torpedo nets, and to allow both the bomb's speed on arrival at the target and the timing of its detonation to be predeterm ...

, designed by

Barnes Wallis Sir Barnes Neville Wallis (26 September 1887 – 30 October 1979) was an English engineer and inventor. He is best known for inventing the bouncing bomb used by the Royal Air Force in Operation Chastise (the "Dambusters" raid) to attack ...

and immortalised in the film The Dam Busters, was tested on the waters of the Fleet.

References

External links

* Villages in Dorset {{dorset-geo-stub

See also

References

External links