Milton Abbas – Your sense of Place

©Bryan Phillips March 2025

We hope that this page will inspire you to look further into the hundreds of interesting things to be found in this amazing village.

We will be posting images along with a short description and history and linking to the Historic England listing for the place whether it be a park, an ancient monument or a building.

Many of these can also be found on the Historic Environment Record managed by Dorset County Council.

They are all important and give us a sense of this place.

Please contact us with your photos and descriptions of things you have discovered. We would love to hear from you.

Tomb to William WOOLFREY

CLAPCOTT Monument, St Mary’s, Winterborne Whitechurch

Victorian Paper Cutter

Landscape Archaeology

©Bryan Phillips June 2026 I bought and read this book in 2005, that is before the Milton Abbas Local History Group was formed. I have now reread it with Milton Abbas in mind and the authors’ examination and excavation of two downland parishes Overton and Fyfield, both in Wiltshire, over forty years reveals the similarities…

Graffiti in Milton Abbey Church

©Bryan Phillips, May 2026 One of our members, Clive Barnes has conducted a targeted personal investigation into the historic graffiti at Milton Abbey Church over several visits between 2024 and 2025. Rather than performing an exhaustive architectural survey, he has focused on identifying anonymous marks and inscriptions that carry historical significance regarding the Abbey’s fabric,…

When were the Tregonwell Almshouses built? 1647, not 1674!

©Clive Barnes, March 2026It is well known that the Milton Abbas almshouses were first built in the old town of Milton Abbas and hen moved to the new village in 1779. But when exactly were they first built? If you research this, you are likely to come across two dates: 1647 and 1674, confusingly, and…