Chilcombe is a

hamlet ''The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark'', often shortened to ''Hamlet'' (), is a Shakespearean tragedy, tragedy written by William Shakespeare sometime between 1599 and 1601. It is Shakespeare's longest play. Set in Denmark, the play (the ...

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, situated in the

unitary authority administrative area about east of

Bridport Bridport is a market town and civil parish in Dorset, England, inland from the English Channel near the confluence of the River Brit and its tributary the River Asker, Asker. Its origins are Anglo-Saxons, Saxon and it has a long history as a ...

and west of the county town, Dorchester. It comprises a church, an 18th-century farmhouse with farm buildings, and a couple of cottages. In 2013 the estimated population of the parish was 10. 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 ...

Chilcombe was recorded as ''Ciltecome''; it had 14 households, 3

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, of pasture and one mill. It was in Uggescombe Hundred 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 Brictwin the reeve. The manor of Chilcombe together with the manor and rectory of

Toller Fratrum Toller Fratrum () is a very small village and civil parish in Dorset, England, near Maiden Newton, anciently in Tollerford Hundred. The name is taken from the village's situation on the brook formerly known as the Toller, now called the Hooke. ...

formerly comprised an estate of the

Knights Hospitaller The Order of Knights of the Hospital of Saint John of Jerusalem, commonly known as the Knights Hospitaller (), is a Catholic military order. It was founded in the crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem in the 12th century and had headquarters there ...

, returned as the 'camera' of Chilcombe (''camera'' meaning in this context an estate with no community and farmed out to a tenant) in 1338, when it was valued at £4 5s. 4d. and paid 30 marks into the Order's treasury at

Clerkenwell Priory Clerkenwell Priory was a priory of the Monastic Order of the Knights Hospitallers of St John of Jerusalem, in present Clerkenwell, London. Run according to the Augustinian rule, it was the residence of the Hospitallers' Grand Prior in England, ...

. Parts of Chilcombe parish church — the south wall of the

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 probably also 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 ...

— date from the 12th century. The Tudor manor house was demolished in 1939.

References

External links

{{Authority control Hamlets in Dorset