Abbotsbury
| Abbotsbury | |||
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| Coordinates | 50 ° 40 ′ N , 2 ° 35 ′ W | ||
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| Residents | 482 (as of 2014) | ||
| surface | 19.53 km² (7.54 mi² ) | ||
| Population density: | 25 inhabitants per km² | ||
| administration | |||
| Post town | WEYMOUTH | ||
| prefix | 01305 | ||
| Part of the country | England | ||
| Ceremonial county | Dorset | ||
| Unitary authority | Dorset | ||
| Civil Parish | Abbotsbury | ||
Abbotsbury is a town and civil parish in Dorset , England . The village has just under 500 inhabitants, it is 16 kilometers northwest of Weymouth and 11 km west of Dorchester on the Jurassic Coast , a section of the English south coast that has been recognized as a World Heritage Site .
The place is a popular destination for tourists, not least because of the varied landscape that surrounds it. The structural remains of the abbey founded in the Middle Ages , a 7-hectare sub-tropical garden, the Fronscheuer and a swan reserve are all worth seeing.
geography
Abbotsbury is located in the National Character Area Weymouth Lowlands , designated by Natural England , in the area of the Jurassic Coast , declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site , and in the Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Dorset . The village has an average annual rainfall of 680 mm, the climate is almost frost-free.
The center of the village lies on Mills Stream, a small stream that rises about two and a half kilometers east of Portesham. At the former abbey, it bends south and, after another kilometer, flows into The Fleet , a brackish water area that is separated from the English Channel by Chesil Beach . The west end of Chesil Beach as well as the adjoining coastline to the west also belong to the parish of Abbotsbury.
The area of the district is 19.53 square kilometers. Neighboring parishes, starting to the west and going clockwise, are Puncknowle, Long Bredy, Portesham and Langton Herring. Abbotsbury does not have its own parish council, but forms a parish association called Chesil Bank with the last two places mentioned and with Fleet .
In the area of the municipality, three areas are designated as Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and are therefore under nature protection. These are Abbotsbury Blind Lane, Abbotsbury Castle and the western part of Chesil and The Fleet; Here is the Abbotsbury Swannery with the breeding season up to 100 mute swan pairs .
history
The initial documented record comes from the period 936 to 946, as Abbedesburie , under a fief award King Edmunds to a Sigewulf. The name suggests that it is an area that was once owned by an abbot . There is so far no evidence of a cathedral from the 8th century that has been suspected on various occasions.
Canute the Great (died 1035) left an area around Abbotsbury to a henchman named Orc or Ore. Possibly as early as 1026, but no later than 1044, a monastery was built there , which was occupied by Benedictine monks from Cerne Abbey . The Domesday Book from the second half of the eleventh century gives 62 households for Abedesberie . The settlement around the monastery was granted the right to hold a Friday weekly market in 1274 . A parish church was first mentioned in 1291, and swan breeding in 1393 .
In 1539, under Henry VIII , the monastery was dissolved and the land and buildings were sold to Sir Giles Strangways. A mansion built there by members of his family served as an ammunition depot and fortress of the royalists during the English Civil War ; it was destroyed during a siege by parliamentary troops in 1644 .
In 1753, the village hit national headlines as part of a criminal case that has not yet been resolved when a domestic servant named Elizabeth Canning was kidnapped - or had faked it. This prompted a London newspaper to refer to the residents of Abbotsbury as "thieves, smugglers and wreck looters" ( English thieves, smugglers and plunderers of wrecks ).
In 1758 the first school opened in Abbotsbury. It was closed in 1973 and the local children have attended school in Portesham ever since. In 1765, the Strangways family had a castle built outside the village, its outdoor facilities are the origin of today's subtropical garden. The building itself burned down in 1913, an unfinished new building was demolished in 1934. In 1885 Abbotsbury was the terminus of a railway line, the Abbotsbury Railway . Initially designed as a freight line, it soon also served passenger transport. In 1973 the company was closed.
Buildings
The well-preserved stone houses are typical of Abbotsbury. A total of 114 buildings and facilities in the municipality are classified as culturally and historically significant: 88 listed buildings in category II, 6 in category II * and a further 6 in the highest category I. These are with the one remaining outer wall of the collegiate church, the Zehntscheuer, the Malthouse and four dairy from the context of the former abbey, as well as the parish church of St. Nicholas and the chapel of St. Catherine, located on a hill above the village. There are also 13 ground monuments designated as Scheduled Monument , including the Hillfort Abbotsbury Castle , an Iron Age fortification, and Abbotsbury Gardens, which dates back to the first half of the 19th century .
literature
- Her Majesty's Stationery Office: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 1, West, London 1952, pp. 1-11. Digitized on the British History Online website. (English)
- The Dorset Historic Towns Project report on Abbotsbury from 2011 on the county government website. (English)
Web links
- Chesil Bank Parish Council (English)
- abbotsbury.co.uk Website of the City's Tourism and Trade Association (English)
- Population statistics on the Dorset Administration geoserver
- Abbotsbury at opcdorset.org (English)
- Abbotsbury, Dorset at visionofbritain.org (English)
- Abbotsbury in the database of the Ordnance Survey (English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Penelope Hobhouse, Garden Style. London, Frances Lincoln 1988, p. 24
- ↑ Information on the location and area of the district on the website of the Office for National Statistics , accessed on November 28, 2017. (English)
- ↑ Description of the SSSI on the Natural England website, PDF file, 2.5 kB, accessed on November 30, 2017 (English)
- ↑ Description of the SSSI on the Natural England website, PDF file, 3.6 kB, accessed on November 30, 2017 (English)
- ↑ Description of the SSSI on the Natural England website, PDF file, 55.6 kB, accessed on November 30, 2017 (English)
- ↑ Abbotsbury ( Memento of the original from December 1, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Historical Gazetteer of England's Place-Names, accessed November 28, 2017. (English)
- ↑ Abbotsbury ( Memento of the original from November 29, 2017 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. at Opendomesday.org, accessed November 26, 2017
- ↑ Abbotsbury Parish database query on Historic England's website , carried out on November 28, 2017. (English)
