Category Archives: landscape

Research Group

©Bryan Phillips Jun2025 As well as giving a series of monthly talks, we also have a Research Group. We meet about four times a year and discuss our progress on the topics we are each researching. This is the most … Continue reading

Posted in landscape, local history, Metal Detecting, Milton Abbey, Old Town of Milton Abbas | Leave a comment

Sheep and Wool in medieval Milton Abbas

©Bryan Phillips Aug 2024 Take a look at our new page on this website devoted to sheep on the Milton Abbey monastery’s manors. This is part of our exploration of life as a peasant worker in Milton Abbas when wages … Continue reading

Posted in farming, landscape, local history, Medieval history, Milton Abbey | Leave a comment

Charles Bullock – Metal Detectorist extraordinaire.

The Milton Abbas Local History Group are delighted to have at last an active and very knowledgeable metal detectorist as a member. It was Charles who found and reported the Milton Abbas Pendant, which should now be on display in … Continue reading

Posted in Anglo-Saxon, archaeology, landscape, Medieval history, Metal Detecting | Leave a comment

The Place Names of Milton Abbas

Bryan Phillips’ presentation given to the history group on 7 Jun 2023 is now available for members on this website. The pdf contains the full speaker notes. The MALHG have a spreadsheet of more than 1000 field names contained in … Continue reading

Posted in Anglo-Saxon, Domesday, landscape, local, local history, Medieval history, Milton Abbas, records | Leave a comment

Milton Abbas Lake

Our member Clive Barnes gave a presentation summarising his excellent research on the design and building of the dam and lake by Lord Milton to our history group on 1 June. This presentation with maps ‘Lord Milton and the Lake’ … Continue reading

Posted in Damer, document, Dorset, landscape, local history, transcription | Leave a comment

St Catherine’s Chapel

New LIDAR Digital Terrain Model data is now available at Archi Maps. This is a revelation for the area around St Catherine’s Chapel. Compare the map on our website showing the entrenchment with the latest DTM The Chapel itself is … Continue reading

Posted in Anglo-Saxon, archaeology, landscape, Milton Abbey, St Catherine's Chapel | Leave a comment

Field Names in Milton Abbas

The Milton Abbas Local History Group have some great resources for locating the field names of this parish. We have large scale maps of 1652, and 1770 which name the fields. We have put all this information into a spreadsheet. … Continue reading

Posted in landscape, local history, Medieval history, Milton Abbas | Leave a comment

Discover your Parish Boundary

When did parish boundaries develop? How has your parish boundary changed in the past 1000 years? Why? It surprises me that there are not many local history groups who explore their parish boundaries. The boundary is an essential part of … Continue reading

Posted in Anglo-Saxon, Domesday, landscape, local history, records | 1 Comment

Jack Hargreaves: ‘Why 79 Dorset Villages vanished’

Thanks to Jill Arnold who runs the Arnold Family Facebook page who for reminding me of Jack Hargreaves. I used to watch his series of ‘Out of Town’ every week. Jack lived in Belchawell, just 5 miles from Milton Abbas.  … Continue reading

Posted in Anglo-Saxon, Dorset, landscape, local history, Medieval history | Leave a comment

Walking in History’s Footsteps

Our members, Clive Barnes and Sheila and Peter Arnold have been walking the old roads and tracks of Milton Abbas and compared maps of the 18th century when Joseph Damer, Lord Milton moved the roads to build his landscape.

Posted in Capability Brown, Damer, history, landscape, local history, Milton Abbas | Leave a comment