Melbury Osmond 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 ...

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 ...

. It lies approximately south of the

Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...

town of

Yeovil Yeovil () is a town and civil parishes in England, civil parish in Somerset, England. It is close to Somerset's southern border with Dorset, west of London, south of Bristol, west of Sherborne and east of Taunton. The population of the bui ...

. The underlying geology is Cornbrash limestone, with adjacent

Oxford clay The Oxford Clay (or Oxford Clay Formation) is a Jurassic marine sedimentary rock formation underlying much of southeast England, from as far west as Dorset and as far north as Yorkshire. The Oxford Clay Formation dates to the Jurassic, specific ...

. Within the clay can be found deposits of stone which can take on a very high polish, earning them the name "Melbury marble". The village is mentioned 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 a possession of the Arundell family, and remained so until the 19th century. The parish church, St. Osmund's, was totally rebuilt in 1745Treves, Sir F., ''Highways and Byways in Dorset'', Macmillan, 1906, pp322-323 and

restored ''Restored'' is the fourth studio album by American contemporary Christian musician Jeremy Camp. It was released on November 16, 2004, by BEC Recordings. Track listing Standard release Enhanced edition Deluxe gold edition Standard Aus ...

in 1888, although it has registers dating back to 1550. In the 2011 census 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 199. The major part of Melbury Osmond village lies on a

cul-de-sac A dead end, also known as a ''cul-de-sac'' (; , ), a no-through road or a no-exit road, is a street with only one combined inlet and outlet. Dead ends are added to roads in urban planning designs to limit traffic in residential areas. Some d ...

lane which from the church descends past cottages to a stream and ford. The attractive appearance of the village has been noted by commentators: it has been described as "a calendarsmith's dream of thatched cottages" and in 1906 Sir Frederick Treves wrote that it was "the most charming village in these Western backwoods". In its history the village has been involved in the trade of plated buckles and horn buttons, and the manufacture of dowlas. During the 19th century, the village was home to the Dorset Ooser, a wooden mask brought out during "

Rough Music Charivari (, , , alternatively spelled shivaree or chivaree and also called a skimmington) was a European and North American folk custom designed to shame a member of the community, in which a mock parade was staged through the settlement accompa ...

" ceremonies. There are 34 listed buildings and structures within the parish, including the Grade II* Old Rectory and the Grade I parish church.

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Literary realism, Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry ...

's mother lived in Melbury Osmond as a child, and she was married in the church. The village appears as "Little Hintock" in Hardy's novel ''

The Woodlanders ''The Woodlanders'' is a novel by Thomas Hardy serialised from 15 May 1886 to 9 April 1887 in ''Macmillan's Magazine'' and published in three volumes in 1887. It is one of his series of Thomas Hardy's Wessex, Wessex novels. Plot summary The st ...

'', in which the heroine's name is "Grace Melbury". Hardy also incorporated a legend about the

Duke of Monmouth Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and above sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they ar ...

taking refuge in one of the village's cottages into his short story ''"The Duke's Reappearance"''.

Notes

External links

Melbury Osmond Parish Council
{{Authority control Villages in Dorset