Menu
- Home
- Search▼
- List▼
- Add▼
- My Relate▼
- Admin▼
ViewsWatchers |
[edit] HistoryIn the 10th century a charter of King Edmund records a granting of land at "Abbedesburi", a name which indicates the land may have once belonged to an abbot. In the 11th century King Cnut (or Canute) granted land at nearby Portesham (#9) to the Scandinavian thegn Orc (also Urki, Urk), who took up residence in the area with his wife Tola. The couple founded Abbotsbury Abbey and enriched it with a substantial amount of land. In 1086, in the Domesday Book Abbotsbury was recorded as "Abedesberie" or "Abodesberie"; it had 62 households, 16 ploughlands, of meadow and 2 mills. It was in thehundred of Uggescombe and the lords and tenants-in-chief were Abbotsbury Abbey and Hawise, wife of Hugh son of Grip. Abbotsbury Abbey existed for 500 years, but was destroyed in the dissolution of the monasteries in 1539, although the abbey barn survived. Stone from the abbey was used in the construction of many buildings in the village, including the house of Abbotsbury's new owner, Sir Giles Strangways. In 1664, during the English Civil War, Parliamentarians and Royalists clashed at Abbotsbury. Parliamentarians besieged the Royalists in the church of St. Nicholas; two bullet holes from the fight remain in the Jacobean pulpit. The Strangways house which had replaced the Abbey after the dissolution was also the scene of a skirmish, as the Royalist Colonel Strangways resisted the Parliamentarians, who besieged the house and burned it. The house gunpowder store exploded in the fire and the house was destroyed, together with the old abbey records which had been stored there. In the late 17th, and early 18th centuries Abbotsbury experienced several fires, resulting in the destruction of virtually all its medieval buildings. Most of the historic secular buildings in the village today were built from stone in the 17th and 18th centuries. County historian John Hutchins (1698–1773) recorded that fishing was the main industry in the village, and 18th-century militia ballot lists reveal that husbandry (farming) was also particularly important. Ropemaking, basketry and the manufacture of cotton stockings were other notable trades within the village, with records indicating hemp and withies being grown in the area. In the early 19th century, Abbotsbury's population grew steadily, from about 800 in 1801 to nearly 1,100 sixty years later. Between 1885 and 1952, Abbotsbury was served by the Abbotsbury Railway, a branch from the main line to Weymouth. It was primarily designed for freight, in anticipation of the development of oil shale deposits and stone at Portesham, as well as iron ore at Abbotsbury which would be shipped to South Wales for processing. The Abbotsbury terminus of the line was inconveniently sited east of the village because the railway could not buy the land needed to build the station closer to the village. During the Second World War, the coastal front was fortified and defended as a part of British anti-invasion preparations of World War II. Later, The Fleet Lagoon was used as a machine gun training range, and bouncing bombs were tested there, for Operation Chastise (the "Dambuster" sortie). [edit] GovernanceAbbotsbury was originally a parish in the Uggscombe Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. From 1894 until 1933 it was part of the Weymouth Rural District. In 1933 Weymouth Rural District was abolished and its northern parishes were transferred to Dorchester Rural District. In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. Abbotsbury joined the non-metropolitan West Dorset District. Under another set of local government reforms adopted on 1 April 2019, West Dorset District was abolished, and the County of Dorset (excluding Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole) became a single unitary authority. The area is now administered by Dorset Council. [edit] Dorset Research TipsOne of the many maps available on the website A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Dorset at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. The internal boundaries on this map are the rural districts which are indicated in WeRelate's "See Also" box for the place concerned (unless it is an urban parish). The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases. Some are linked to Ancestry.
[edit] CensusesUK censuses are taken every ten years in the years ending in "1". There was no census in 1941. Details are not made available for 100 years after a census. A number of online databases (both paid and free) provide transcriptions of censuses up to 1911. Most of these provide information for an individual or a family. Many also provide images of the originals and thus allow browsing of a page or perhaps a whole enumeration district. The 1921 census was published in January 2022. It is available at FindMyPast with a charge additional to the usual subscrition to view the manuscript entries (there is no extra charge to view the index). The Dorset Online Parish Clerks provides a good number of 19th century census transcriptions as well as lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded in the parish. The formal Home Office Numbers (those starting with HO used in 1841 and 1851), the Registrar General Numbers (starting with RG in later decades, and the Enumeration District Numbers are included. There is an illustrated article to introduce each parish. The 1841 census differed from the later ones in two different ways.
From 1851 onwards people were asked for the county and civil parish in which they were born whether in or out of the county, and ages were expressed exactly (in months for infants).
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
