Woodlands 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. 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 ...

, South-West England. It is five miles (8 km) north of

Wimborne Minster Wimborne Minster (often referred to as Wimborne, ) is a market town in Dorset in South West England, and the name of the Church of England church in that town. It lies at the confluence of the River Stour and the River Allen, north of Pool ...

. The village is home to the Church of the Ascension which is a Grade II listed building. In 2001, the parish had a

population Population is a set of humans or other organisms in a given region or area. Governments conduct a census to quantify the resident population size within a given jurisdiction. The term is also applied to non-human animals, microorganisms, and pl ...

of 544 but in 2011 the number had fallen to 522.

The village

Demography

The population grew from 346 in 1811 to 476 in 1851 and then declined to 384 in 1911 but grew from a low point of 323 in 1951 to reach 544 in the 2001 census. In 2011, the village had a population of 522, 272 males and 250 females; the majority (504) were white British and Christianity (334) was the main religion. In 1831 the majority of the population (67) were employed as agricultural labourers, and in 1881 that had increased to 70.

Housing

In 2017, the average house price in Woodlands was £447,735 which is more than in neighbouring Verwood (£332,770) and Three Legged Cross (£352,353) but cheaper than nearby Holt (£699,607).

Recreation

Remedy Oak golf club is south of the village.

Parish church

Woodlands is home to the Anglican Church of the Ascension, a Grade II listed building. The church is in the

Diocese of Salisbury The Diocese of Salisbury is a Church of England diocese in the south of England, within the ecclesiastical Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers the historic county of Dorset (which excludes the deaneries of Bournemouth and Christchurch, ...

. The church was dedicated in 1892 and was given to the village by Harriet, the Countess of Shaftesbury, in memory of her husband

Anthony Anthony, also spelled Antony, is a masculine given name derived from the '' Antonii'', a '' gens'' ( Roman family name) to which Mark Antony (''Marcus Antonius'') belonged. According to Plutarch, the Antonii gens were Heracleidae, being descenda ...

who was the 8th

Earl of Shaftesbury Earl of Shaftesbury is a title in the Peerage of England. It was created in 1672 for Anthony Ashley-Cooper, 1st Baron Ashley, a prominent politician in the Cabal then dominating the policies of King Charles II. He had already succeeded his fa ...

. The church was designed by prolific church architect

George Frederick Bodley George Frederick Bodley (14 March 182721 October 1907) was an English Gothic Revival architect. He was a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott and worked with C. E. Kempe. He was in partnership with Thomas Garner for much of his career and was ...

who designed cathedrals in Tasmania and Washington. The exterior of the church is in plain brick. Inside are three central columns arcading down the middle of the nave. On entering the church there is a large 12th-century circular stone font from Knowlton church (two miles west) which, according to tradition, was used for baptisms by Saint

Aldhelm Aldhelm (, ; 25 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the son of Kenten, who was of the royal house of Wessex ...

History

Woodlands parish was established when the hamlets of Baggeridge, Woodlands and Knowlton (the earliest settlement) were detached from Horton in the 19th century. Woodlands village was then first recorded in 1244. Woodlands was part of the Shaftesbury estate until after the Second World war. The parish is home to the hamlet of Knowlton with its prehistoric

henge A henge can be one of three related types of Neolithic Earthworks (archaeology), earthwork. The essential characteristic of all three is that they feature a ring-shaped bank and ditch, with the ditch inside the bank. Because the internal ditches ...

s known as

Knowlton Circles Knowlton Circles (also known as Knowlton Henges or Knowlton Rings) are a complex of henges and earthworks (archaeology), earthworks in Knowlton, Dorset, Knowlton, Dorset, England. The henge enclosing Knowlton Church is the best known and best pr ...

. In 1870-72 John Marius Wilson's ''Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales'' said that in Woodlands: "The Duke of Monmouth, after the battle of Sedgemoor, was taken here in a ditch." The village is mentioned in 'Owen's book of fairs' in 1788 as having a yearly fair selling horses, cheese and toys on 5 July. Woodlands_population_time_series_1801-2011

Woodlands_population_time_series_1801-2011

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Dorset Civil parishes in Dorset