Place:Winterborne St. Martin, Dorset, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Winterborne St. Martin (#33 on map), is a civil parish and a village commonly known as Martinstown in Dorset, England, situated 4 miles (6.4 km) southwest of Dorchester, beside Maiden Castle, an Iron Age hill fort. In 2013 the county estimate of the population of the civil parish was 780. In the centre of the village is the parish church of St. Martin, which dates from the 12th century and has a Norman font. The stream running through the village is a winterborne, a stream that only collects water during the winter and spring. In full summer and autumn it is usually a dry river bed.

History

In 1086 in the Domesday Book Winterborne St. Martin was recorded as Wintreburne; it had 22 households, 6 ploughlands, 13 acres (5.3 hectares) of meadow and 1 mill. It was in the hundred of Dorchester and the lord and tenant-in-chief was Hawise, wife of Hugh son of Grip.

In 1268 Henry II granted a charter to Winterborne St Martin, which allowed the village to hold an annual fair within five days of St. Martin's Day. The fair, which in times past was a leading horse market and amusement fair, had been revived but the old-time custom of roasting a ram was replaced once during an event in the 1960s with a 'badger roast'.

After a hundred years silence, bells in the church rang out in 1947. Five new bells were hung as a village memorial to those who died in the war. An earlier peal had been sold to defray debts.

The Catholic martyr John Adams was born in Winterborne St Martin in about 1543. The politician Sir Francis Ashley was the main landowner here in the early seventeenth century.

Governance

Winterborne St. Martin was originally a parish in the George Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the 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. Winterborne St. Martin 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.

Research Tips