Winterborne St Martin, commonly known as Martinstown, is a
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 southwest
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, situated southwest of
Dorchester, beside
Maiden Castle Maiden Castle or the Maiden's Castle may refer to:
Historical fortifications in England
''Maiden'' derives from the Celtic ''Mai Dun'' which means 'great hill'.
*Maiden Castle, Cheshire, an Iron Age hill fort
* Maiden Castle, Cumbria, a Roman for ...
. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 780.
[
In the centre of the village is the parish church of St Martin, which dates from the 12th century and has a Norman font. Other amenities in the village include a public house, village hall and post office. Bronze Age barrows including ]Clandon Barrow
200px, The Clandon Barrow gold lozenge
Clandon Barrow is a very large bowl barrow dating from the Bronze Age, which overlooks the village of Martinstown, near Dorchester in Dorset, and which lies on the same ridge as Maiden Castle, near to the ...
surround the village, and Maiden Castle hillfort
A hillfort is a type of fortification, fortified refuge or defended settlement located to exploit a rise in elevation for defensive advantage. They are typical of the late Bronze Age Europe, European Bronze Age and Iron Age Europe, Iron Age. So ...
is nearby. The stream running through the village is a winterbourne though rarely dries out in the summer now.
Winterborne St Martin is in the UK Weather Records
The United Kingdom weather records show the most extreme weather ever recorded in the United Kingdom, such as temperature, wind speed, and rainfall records. Reliable temperature records for the whole of the United Kingdom go back to about 1880.
...
for the ''Highest 24-hour total'' rainfall
Rain is a form of precipitation where water droplets that have condensed from atmospheric water vapor fall under gravity. Rain is a major component of the water cycle and is responsible for depositing most of the fresh water on the Earth. ...
, which was recorded in the village on 18 July 1955
Events January
* January 3 – José Ramón Guizado becomes president of Panama.
* January 17 – , the first nuclear-powered submarine, puts to sea for the first time, from Groton, Connecticut.
* January 18– 20 – Battle of Yijian ...
. The total recorded was 279 mm (11 inches) in a 15-hour period.
History
In 1086 in the 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 at the behest of William the Conqueror. The manuscript was originally known by ...
Winterborne St Martin was recorded as ''Wintreburne''; it had 22 households, 6 ploughland
The carucate or carrucate ( or ) was a medieval unit of land area approximating the land a plough team of eight oxen could till in a single annual season. It was known by different regional names and fell under different forms of tax assessment.
...
s, of meadow and one mill. It was in the hundred
100 or one hundred (Roman numerals, Roman numeral: C) is the natural number following 99 (number), 99 and preceding 101 (number), 101.
In mathematics
100 is the square of 10 (number), 10 (in scientific notation it is written as 102). The standar ...
of Dorchester and the lord and tenant-in-chief
In medieval and early modern Europe, a tenant-in-chief (or vassal-in-chief) was a person who held his lands under various forms of feudal land tenure directly from the king or territorial prince to whom he did homage, as opposed to holding them ...
was Hawise, wife of Hugh son of Grip.
In 1268 Henry II
Henry II may refer to:
Kings
* Saint Henry II, Holy Roman Emperor (972–1024), crowned King of Germany in 1002, of Italy in 1004 and Emperor in 1014
*Henry II of England (1133–89), reigned from 1154
*Henry II of Jerusalem and Cyprus (1271–1 ...
granted a charter to Winterborne St Martin, which allowed the village to hold an annual fair within five days of St. Martin's Day
Saint Martin's Day or Martinmas (obsolete: Martlemas), and historically called Old Halloween or All Hallows Eve, is the feast day of Saint Martin of Tours and is celebrated in the liturgical year on 11 November. In the Middle Ages and early mod ...
. The fair, which in times past was a leading horse market and amusement fair, had been revived, but the old-time custom of roasting a ram was replaced once during an event in the 1960s with a 'badger roast'. The 80 lb badger was caught in a snare, and many villagers thought they were eating goose.
After a hundred years silence, bells in the church rang out in 1947. Five new bells were hung as a village memorial to those who died in the war. An earlier peal had been sold to defray debts.
In 2007 and 2014 Martinstown won the Best Kept Village in Dorset Award, in the Large Village Category.
The Catholic martyr John Adams
John Adams (October 30, 1735 – July 4, 1826) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the second president of the United States from 1797 to 1801. Before Presidency of John Adams, his presidency, he was a leader of ...
was born in Winterborne St Martin in about 1543. The politician Sir Francis Ashley
Sir Francis Ashley (24 November 1569 – 28 November 1635) was an English lawyer and politician who sat in the House of Commons at various times between 1614 and 1625.
Biography
Ashley was born at Damerham, the son of Sir Anthony Ashley of Da ...
was the main landowner here in the early seventeenth century.
Governance
After 2019 structural changes to local government in England
Nineteen or 19 may refer to:
* 19 (number)
* One of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019
Films
* ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film
* ''Nineteen'' (1987 film), a 1987 science fiction film
* '' 19-Nineteen'', a 2009 South Korean film
* '' Dici ...
, Winterborne St Martin is part of the Winterborne and Broadmayne ward which elects 1 member to Dorset Council.
Winterborne St Martin was within an electoral ward
A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected t ...
that bears its name and extends from Winterbourne Abbas
Winterbourne Abbas is a village and civil parish in south west Dorset, England, situated in a valley on the A35 road west of Dorchester. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 355.
History
In the early hours of 6 May 2023, a la ...
in a roughly south-easterly direction to the edge of Upwey. The total population of this ward was 2,095 in the 2011 census.
See also
*List of hundreds in Dorset
This is a list of Hundred (division), hundreds in the county of Dorset, England. Between the Anglo-Saxon England, Anglo-Saxon period and the Local Government Act 1888, the county of Dorset was divided into Hundred (division), hundreds and boroug ...
References
Notes
External links
Aerial map
Villages in Dorset
{{Dorset-geo-stub