YOU HAVE MISSED THIS TALK!

©Bryan Phillips Jul 2025

We are hoping to persuade Anne Brown to repeat her talk to the Milton Abbas Local History Group next season – watch this space.

It was superb. Over 100 people were lucky to be in the audience to see one of the most impressive pieces of documentary research into a DMV – although Elston was never a village, just a collection of 6 houses with a curtilage each and 11 small fields at the most. It is remarkable that we know the names of the tenants and the rents there as early as 1322 and going through to the last records in the 17th century when it became lost – at least to recorded history.

There were many other villages, vills or hamlets on Milton Abbey’s estates scattered across Dorset before its dissolution in 1539 which were abandoned. One – Holworth – has been excavated, but the others remain unexplored, although Lyscombe with 15 named tenants in 1317 has been identified by one of our members on the LiDAR. Why not join our Research Group to discover more of these mysterious places.

The Story of a Deserted Medieval Village In the Heart of the Sydling Valley.

Sydling St Nicholas Historical Society

Thursday 3^rd July 7.30pm  Sydling Village Hall 

Elston was one of the vills of Sydling St Nicholas which was one of Milton Abbey’s manors before the Dissolution of the monasteries 1539. The Milton Abbas Local History Group have shared the information we have on Sydling of the fourteenth century with Anne Brown, who has very kindly been translating some of the medieval Latin documents held at Winchester College Archives.

Elston, once a thriving a medieval hamlet nestled in the picturesque Sydling valley, now  lies deserted, its story lost to history. Anne Brown explores the village’s origins, its life  during the medieval era, and the reasons behind its abandonment.