©Bryan Phillips Sep 2026
Some of our members are still busy researching this amazing place with such a long history. Several of us are looking at the medieval abbey and Bryan Phillips’ talk at the November meeting will feature an interesting document in the Dorset History Centre. Actually it is a parchment roll written around 1400 onto which has been copied twenty earlier documents. Clearly the boundaries of Milton Abbey and its other manors were of great concern as there are several detailed descriptions of them. The parish boundary of Milton Abbas and Woolland as described can still be followed today giving us a link to the landscape here about 650 years ago. There have been a few minor changes since the jury who swore on their oath in the eighth year of Richard II’s reign – 1384/5 – and we have a perambulation of 1769 to compare it with.
Anne Brown has had part of her research on the lost village of Elston in Sydling St Nicholas (a Milton Abbey manor until the Dissolution) published in the West Dorset Magazine. This village has a lot to tell us on how hamlets and villages became deserted. Historians used to think that the Black Death was mostly the cause, but this is absolutely not the case. Anne has managed to follow the long and slow decline in the fortunes of Elston from the early fourteenth century through the Dissolution and then during its ownership by Winchester College. Some of Milton Abbey’s other manors followed a similar fate – for example Lyscombe.
Shirley Chick is continuing to transcribe our records into searchable text. Her latest achievement was the first day of the 1932 Sale of the Milton Abbey Estate by the Hambro family, and she is continuing with the Day 2 sale. These give details of the properties in The Street and gives detailed maps of the plots, the number of rooms of the cottages, the tenants’ names and their annual rent – a wonderful resource for house histories. Perhaps the latest series of ‘A house Through Time’ will inspire some to research their homes. Incidentally we attended a talk by one of the consultants to this series who told us that one series featuring a manor house was in progress when the BBC pulled the plug and said the idea was UNRELATABLE – shame on the BBC. – so much for modern historical research! Perhaps they should have considered Dan Jones’ Odyssey, full of Ancient Greek myth! How relatable is that?
There is still much to learn about the history of Milton Abbas and many documents still to study at the Dorset History Centre. If anyone would like to help us in this endeavour please get in touch via our website.
Our AGM on 7th October in the Reading Rooms will be followed by a talk by Pamela Phillips on the making of ‘Pubs, Ponds and Power’ in Milton Abbas, where we are credited as ‘historical consultants’. Pamela will talk about the material which ended up on ‘the cutting room floor’.
