Fontmell Magna
| Fontmell Magna | |
| Dorset | |
|---|---|
 Fontmell Magna village centre | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | ST866169 |
| Location: | 50°57’5"N, 2°11’30"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 734 (2011) |
| Post town: | Shaftesbury |
| Postcode: | SP7 |
| Dialling code: | 01747 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Dorset |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
North Dorset |
Fontmell Magna is a village in northern Dorset, in the Blackmore Vale, close to the chalk hills of Cranborne Chase. It may be found along the A350 road five miles south of Shaftesbury and eight miles north of Blandford Forum.
The 2011 census recorded a parish population of 734.
Name
The name Fontmell is believed derive from an Old Welsh river-name akin the modern Welsh Ffynhonn moel meaning 'spring of the hill'. The suffix 'Magna' meaning 'great' distinguishes it from Fontmell Parva (parva meaning small),[1] which is a few miles southwest in Child Okeford parish.
In 877 Fontmell Magna was recorded as Funtemel. In 1086 in the Domesday Book it was Fontemale, and in 1391 it was Magnam Funtemell.[1]
History
Evidence of early human presence occurs in the east and northeast of the parish in the form of earthworks on the chalk hills: these consist of three cross-dykes, a barrow and a mound that is also possibly a barrow.[2]
In 932, King Æthelstan granted an estate at Fontmell to the nuns of Shaftesbury Abbey under the condition that they would sing 50 psalms after Prime and offer masses at Terce, for the king's intention.[3]
Of settlements existing within the parish today, the earliest is the main village, which originated before the Norman Conquest.[2] The Domesday Book of 1086 recorded that Fontemale was in Sixpenny Hundred;[4] it had 3 mills,[5] 68 households, and the estate's lord and tenant-in-chief was Shaftesbury Abbey.[4] A land survey made by the abbey in about 1130–35 shows that the Fontmell Magna estate had 65 tenants, of whom 41 were villeins, each holding between half and one yardland, and the rest were cottars, each with about four acres. The number of mills had increased to four.[6] A second survey made in about 1170–80 shows the population had increased to 80 tenants, of whom 55 were villeins.[6]
To the west of the main village, the hamlet of Bedchester is also of pre-Conquest origin, though the settlement furthest west in the parish, Hartgrove, is not recorded before 1254. Hill Farm, over the chalk hills in the east of the parish, first appears in records in 1333.[2]
About the village
There are listed buildings and structures within Fontmell Magna civil parish. The parish church is designated as Grade II*, and all the other listings are Grade II.
In 1906 Sir Frederick Treves described the church as "one of the handsomest in Dorsetshire".[7]
The chalk hill just outside the village to the east, Fontmell Down, is a nature reserve.[8]
Outside links
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("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Magna Fontmell Magna) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Mills, Anthony David: 'A Dictionary of British Place-Names' (Oxford University Press, 2003) ISBN 978-0-19-852758-9
- ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Fontmell Magna: An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 4, pages 21–27
- ↑ Studies in the Early History of Shaftesbury Abbey. Dorset County Council, 1999
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 @"Place: Fontmell [Magna"]. Open Domesday. domesdaymap.co.uk. http://domesdaymap.co.uk/place/ST8616/fontmell-magna/. Retrieved 23 July 2014.
- ↑ "Dorset A–G". The Domesday Book Online. domesdaybook.co.uk. http://www.domesdaybook.co.uk/dorset1.html. Retrieved 22 July 2014.
- ↑ 6.0 6.1 Bettey, J.H. (1974). Dorset. City and County Histories. David & Charles. pp. 42–3. ISBN 0-7153-6371-9.
- ↑ Treves, Frederick, Sir (1906). Highways and Byways in Dorset (1st ed.). Macmillan. p. 50.
- ↑ Booton, Peter (April 2012). "Melbury Hill, Compton Abbas and Fontmell Down". http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2012/04/melbury-hill-compton-abbas-and-fontmell-down/. Retrieved 26 July 2014.