Stoke Abbott 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 west

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 ...

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, west of Beaminster. In 2013 the estimated population of the parish was 190. The author Ralph Wightman, agriculturist, broadcaster, and native of Dorset, described the village as "a beautiful place of deep lanes, orchards and old houses, with a church of quiet charm", and, in a similar vein, Sir Frederick Treves in 1906 considered it "as pretty a village as any in Dorset". On Waddon Hill to the northwest of the village are the remains of earthworks of an Iron Age settlement, consisting of a low bank wide and traces of a ditch, replaced in AD 50 to AD60 by a short lived Roman Fort, though historic quarrying around the hill has destroyed much of the fort. Mid-1st-century

Roman Roman or Romans most often refers to: *Rome, the capital city of Italy *Ancient Rome, Roman civilization from 8th century BC to 5th century AD *Roman people, the people of Roman civilization *Epistle to the Romans, shortened to Romans, a letter w ...

and

Romano-British The Romano-British culture arose in Britain under the Roman Empire following the Roman conquest in AD 43 and the creation of the province of Britannia. It arose as a fusion of the imported Roman culture with that of the indigenous Britons, ...

military artefacts were found on the hill's southern slopes in 1876–1878, and in Graham Webster's 1960's excavations. Roman artefacts fron Chartknolle, a flat area further east, are on display in the village hall, along with a replica of a gold durotrigian stater. 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 ...

in 1086 the village was recorded as Stoche and had 32 households. The parish church of St Mary the Virgin has Norman origins but has been altered and added to over the centuries. The 12th-century

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

is notable. The poet William Crowe was rector here between 1782 and 1786; at the end of his incumbency he published his most well known piece, ''Lewesdon Hill'', about the hill to the west of the village. The Very Rev Hedley Robert Burrows (1887–1983), who later became

Archdeacon An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox Church, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denomina ...

Winchester Winchester (, ) is a City status in the United Kingdom, cathedral city in Hampshire, England. The city lies at the heart of the wider City of Winchester, a local government Districts of England, district, at the western end of the South Downs N ...

and then

Dean of Hereford The Dean of Hereford is the head (''primus inter pares'' – first among equals) and chair of the chapter of canons, the ruling body of Hereford Cathedral. The dean and chapter are based at the ''Cathedral Church of Blessed Virgin Mary and St Et ...

, was incumbent at Stoke Abbott for a time.

Politics

In the UK national parliament, Stoke Abbott is within the West Dorset parliamentary constituency. After

2019 structural changes to local government in England Nineteen or 19 may refer to: * 19 (number) * One of the years 19 BC, AD 19, 1919, 2019 Films * ''19'' (film), a 2001 Japanese film * ''Nineteen'' (1987 film), a 1987 science fiction film * '' 19-Nineteen'', a 2009 South Korean film * '' Dici ...

, Stoke Abbott is part of the Marshwood Vale ward which elects 1 member to Dorset Council.

References

Villages in Dorset {{Dorset-geo-stub