Long Bredy is a village in the

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 ...

of Long Bredy and Kingston Russell, 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 ...

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 south-west England, situated approximately west of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in the valley of the small River Bride, beneath

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 The Dorset Downs are an area of chalk downland in the centre of the county Dorset in south west England. The downs are the most western part of a larger chalk formation which also includes (from west to east) Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, ...

. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 208. On 1 April 2024 the parish was abolished and merged with Kingston Russell to form "Long Bredy and Kingston Russell". The environs of Long Bredy have some

prehistoric Prehistory, also called pre-literary history, is the period of human history between the first known use of stone tools by hominins million years ago and the beginning of recorded history with the invention of writing systems. The use o ...

history, including a burial chamber known as The Grey Mare and her Colts. The village itself is thought to have been established around the 9th century, and in 1086 was recorded 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 ...

as 'Langebride', which would have been pronounced 'Langabridda'. To the east of the village is Kingston Russell house, a 17th-century mansion. Bottle Knap Cottage, 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 ...

, 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, Hi ...

. In May 2013 human skeletal remains were discovered near the cottage which dated back to approximately 800 to 600 BC, according to

radiocarbon dating Radiocarbon dating (also referred to as carbon dating or carbon-14 dating) is a method for Chronological dating, determining the age of an object containing organic material by using the properties of carbon-14, radiocarbon, a radioactive Isotop ...

. Martin Papworth, an archaeologist with the National Trust, said, "The remains are of three teenage or young adults, probably crouched, are all from around the period when the first iron was being used in this country. No other burials in Dorset have been identified from this time."

Notable people

* George Richards (died 1746) Member of Parliament for

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 ...

was born in Long Bredy.

Notes

External links

Villages in Dorset Former civil parishes in Dorset {{Dorset-geo-stub