Steeple is a hamlet and former

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 ...

, now in the civil parish of Steeple with Tyneham, in the English county of

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 ...

. It is situated west of the

coastal resort town A seaside resort is a city, town, village, or hotel that serves as a vacation resort and is located on a coast. Sometimes the concept includes an aspect of an official accreditation based on the satisfaction of certain requirements such as in t ...

Swanage Swanage () is a coastal town and civil parish in the south east of Dorset, England. It is at the eastern end of the Isle of Purbeck and one of its two towns, approximately south of Poole and east of Dorchester, Dorset, Dorchester. In the Unit ...

at the foot of

Ridgeway Hill Ridgeway Hill, also referred to as Grange Hill or Steeple Hill, is the third highest point of the Purbeck Hills in the county of Dorset standing at , is one of the only hills with a prominence of over a hundred metres, HuMPs, in the county. Near ...

. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 60. The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 2014 and merged with

Tyneham Tyneham is a ghost town, ghost village abandoned in 1943 and former civil parish, now in the parish of Steeple with Tyneham, in the Dorset (district), Dorset district, in the south of Dorset, England, near Lulworth on the Isle of Purbeck. In 2001 ...

to form Steeple with Tyneham. The Gerrard family of Longhide were the principal landowners here from the fourteenth to the sixteenth century; the lands then passed by inheritance to the Napier family. The ancient Norman church of Steeple, dedicated to St Michael and All Angels, lacks a steeple. It has a coat of arms engraved in stone in the porch and another painted in scarlet of the roof interior that is precisely the same as

George Washington George Washington (, 1799) was a Founding Fathers of the United States, Founding Father and the first president of the United States, serving from 1789 to 1797. As commander of the Continental Army, Washington led Patriot (American Revoluti ...

's coat of arms, showing stars and stripes. The Washington arms is quartered with those of the squires of Steeple village, the Lawrence family, who are allied with the Washingtons by the marriage of one of its sons, Edmund Lawrence, to Agnes de Wessington in 1390. The flag of the US capital hangs inside the church, presented on 25 July 1977 by Walter E Washington, Mayor of Washington DC from 2 January 1975 - 2 January 1979 On the highest local point of the nearby Purbeck Ridge is an 18th-century

folly In architecture, a folly is a building constructed primarily for decoration, but suggesting through its appearance some other purpose, or of such extravagant appearance that it transcends the range of usual garden buildings. Eighteenth-cent ...

built by the former owner of

Creech Grange Creech Grange is a country house in Steeple, south of Wareham in Dorset at the foot of the Purbeck Hills. Historic England designate it as a Grade I listed building. The park and gardens are Grade II* listed in the National Register of Historic ...

and known as Grange Arch. Today it is a

Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...

owned by the

National Trust The National Trust () is a heritage and nature conservation charity and membership organisation in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. The Trust was founded in 1895 by Octavia Hill, Sir Robert Hunter and Hardwicke Rawnsley to "promote the ...

.''Grange Arch on the Purbeck ridgeway''
at www.geograph.org.uk. Accessed on 26 May 2013.''Grange Arch, Steeple''
at www.britishlistedbuildings.co.uk. Accessed on 26 May 2013.

References

* ''Dorset Pioneers'': Jack Dwyer:

The History Press The History Press is a British publishing company specialising in the publication of titles devoted to local and specialist history. It claims to be the United Kingdom's largest independent publisher in this field, publishing approximately 300 ...

: 2009:

External links

Villages in Dorset Former civil parishes in Dorset Isle of Purbeck Populated places disestablished in 2014 {{Dorset-geo-stub