Godmanstone (or Godmanston
) 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 ...
in the
county
A county () is a geographic region of a country used for administrative or other purposesL. Brookes (ed.) '' Chambers Dictionary''. Edinburgh: Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 2005. in some nations. The term is derived from the Old French denoti ...
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 ...
in southern
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 north of the county town
Dorchester. Its name means ''Godman's Farm''
[ and it is sited by the River Cerne amongst ]chalk
Chalk is a soft, white, porous, sedimentary carbonate rock. It is a form of limestone composed of the mineral calcite and originally formed deep under the sea by the compression of microscopic plankton that had settled to the sea floor. Ch ...
hills of the Dorset Downs. Dorset County Council's latest (2013) estimate of the parish population is 130.[ In the 2011 census the population of Godmanstone parish combined with the small adjoining parish of Nether Cerne was 156.
Godmanstone used to have a pub—The Smiths Arms—which claimed to be the smallest in Britain. The story attached to the claim was that the original licence was granted by King Charles II when he requested that the village smith serve him a glass of porter. The smith refused because he had no licence, so Charles granted him one on the spot and was served his drink. The licence only applied to the smithy; adjacent living quarters, subsequently used by drinkers, were larger. The business has since closed.
Francis Cottington, 1st Baron Cottington (ca.1579–1652) came from Godmanston. He was the English lord treasurer and ambassador and leader of the pro-Spanish, pro-Roman Catholic faction in the court of Charles I.]Cerne Abbas
Cerne Abbas () is a village and civil parish in Dorset in southern England. It lies in the Dorset Council administrative area in the Cerne Valley in the Dorset Downs. The village lies just east of the A352 road north of Dorchester. At the ...
1958-1969, was set in Hymns Ancient and Modern New Standard (#399i), part of which he edited, to the hymn 'Lord, we are blind'
References
External links
Flight of Prince Charles from Worcester
Villages in Dorset
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