©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.
CLAPCOTT Monument, St Mary’s, Winterborne Whitechurch
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…
The fall of John Tregonwell, history or legend?
©Clive Barnes Jan 2026 The story You might know this story. Five-year-old John, the precious heir to the Tregonwell family, Lords of the Manor of Milton Abbas, is taken by his nurse to the narrow walkway around the tower of the Abbey Church. Left to himself, he leans over to reach for a rose growing…
Milton Abbas Poor House
©Bryan Phillips Sep 2025 I was reading the latest issue of The Local Historian August 2025 about ‘Galloping’ Head, a man who had been appointed Assistant Poor Law Commissioner for Kent in 1834. It was his job to meet all the parish overseers and churchwardens of Kent to form them into Parish Unions and then build…
Milton Abbas Local History Group, Dorset, UK 