Category Archives: local history
Six Little Girls Dressed in Blue: Lady Caroline’s “Spinning School”
Clive Barnes writes: On September 7 1789, six village girls walked up to Milton Abbey mansion house to meet King George III and his wife, Queen Charlotte. When the queen returned to Weymouth with “the K”, as she referred to … Continue reading
Fisherman’s Grave
While researching the field names of Milton Abbas and adding to our spreadsheet of 1185 of them, I was reading A D Mills ‘Place Names of Dorset, Part 3’. Page 225 mentions a field called Fisherman’s Grave. He found a … Continue reading
Posted in Anglo-Saxon, Hutchins, local history, Milton Abbas, records
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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
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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
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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
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Milton Abbey before its Dissolution
James G Clark’s new magnum opus ‘The Dissolution of the Monasteries: A New History’, 2021, brings attention to the fact that during the reign of Henry VII 1485 – 1509 the nobility vigorously tried in many ways to interfere in … Continue reading
Posted in books, local history, Milton Abbey, Tregonwell
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What a treasure!
Overseers of the Poor Account Books It is six years ago when I was in Chris Fookes’ shed that I first saw three original Overseers of the Poor Books. They had somehow been saved by the Fookes family of Milton … Continue reading
Posted in Dorset, history, local history, Overseers of the Poor, transcription
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Nicholas Turbeville
One of our members with Milton Abbas ancestors going back the 16th century has discovered that his family were connected to the Turbeville, Horsey, Tregonwell and other high status families. Peter Arnold writes about Nicholas Turbeville: “.. lived at Winterborne … Continue reading
Posted in family history, history, local, local history, Tregonwell
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The name of GERRARD
Whilst searching our transcriptions of Milton Abbas documents for GERRARD it is surprising just how many different spellings of this name there are. The Oxford Names Companion gives: GARRATT, GARRIT, GARRED, GARRAD, GERRETT, GERATT, GERRAD, JARRETT, JARRATT, JERRITT, JARRED, JARAD, … Continue reading
Posted in Churchwardens, family history, local history, Milton Abbas, social history
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St Catherine’s Chapel
This magical and mysterious and religious place was restored by Sir Everard Hambro in 1903. It was re-consecrated that year and the first service in several centuries performed on the Feast of St Catherine 25th November 1903 by the Reverend … Continue reading
Milton Abbas Local History Group, Dorset, UK 