Litton Cheney
| Litton Cheney | |
| Dorset | |
|---|---|
 Parish church of St Mary | |
| Location | |
| Grid reference: | SY552907 |
| Location: | 50°42’50"N, 2°38’9"W |
| Data | |
| Population: | 359 (2011) |
| Post town: | Dorchester |
| Postcode: | DT2 |
| Local Government | |
| Council: | Dorset |
| Parliamentary constituency: |
West Dorset |
| Website: | Litton Cheney Village |
Litton Cheney is a village in Dorset, nine miles west of the county town, Dorchester. It is sited beneath chalk hills in the valley of the small River Bride.
The 2011 census noted a parish population of 359.
On Pins Knoll, to the west of the village, was once an Iron Age settlement, excavated in 1959.[1] On the same site, in the 4th century, there was also a Romano-British building.[1]
Parish church
The parish church, St Mary, was substantially restored in 1878, though it retains features—notably the tower, chancel arch and parts of the nave and porch—from the 14th and 15th centuries and has a font bowl which is probably Norman. AN earlier church was built at this time or earlier.[2]
Prehistoric monuments
In 1936, the archaeologists Stuart Piggott, Cecily Piggott, and W. E. V. Young came upon what they suggested was a ruined Bronze Age stone circle near to the village.[3] This feature consisted of a circular area measuring 47 feet in diameter that was encircled by a shallow ditch. A single sarsen stone was located on the south-east of the ditch, which the Piggotts suggested may have been the last surviving stone in a circle.[3] A further three sarsen stones were located 90 feet to the south of the circle, but their relation to it was deemed "problematic" by the Piggotts.[3]
Outside links
 |
("Wikimedia Commons" has material about Litton Cheney) |
References
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Roland Gant (1980). Dorset Villages. Robert Hale Ltd. pp. 160–1. ISBN 0-7091-8135-3.
- ↑ "Litton Cheney, St Mary". The Dorset Historic Churches Trust. Archived from the original on 23 September 2015. https://web.archive.org/web/20150923220003/http://www.dorsethistoricchurchestrust.co.uk/litton_cheney.htm. Retrieved 25 February 2014.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Piggott & Piggott 1939, p. 146.
- Piggott, Stuart; Piggott, C. M. (1939). "Stone and Earth Circles in Dorset". Antiquity 13 (50): pp. 138–158. doi:10.1017/S0003598X00027861.