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DORSET'S LOST TOWNS & VILLAGES
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There are sites of deserted villages at various places throughout Dorset as in other counties. Examples are at Knowlton (near Wimborne St Giles), old Milton Abbas, Ringstead (on the coast to the east of Weymouth) and Winterborne Farringdon (a mile south of Dorchester).

In some cases the cause of the demise of a village is well documented. At Milton Abbas the village was relocated by Lord Milton to improve his estate. Edward I's "New Town" of Newton on Brand's Bay, Poole Harbour, never succeeded. Other cases are far less clear-cut.

The abandonment of many of these villages has been attributed to the Black Death which ravaged the country in the fourteenth century. This may have been a contributory cause, but the plague is unlikely to have have destroyed whole populations and, had the area been attractive enough, it is likely that the villages would have become repopulated in time. What seems certain is that the drastic depopulation caused by the Black Death caused much marginal land to fall out of cultivation. In such cases the survivors would probably have sought better livlihoods elsewhere. This may have been the case at Ringstead and Winterborne Farringdon.

It is possible that the demise of some of the villages in the south was due to their deliberate depopulation by landlords to make way for the more profitable sheep-farming - this was very common in the Midlands during the Tudor Age.

KNOWLTON

It is known that the three open fields of Knowlton were still being cultivated early in the 16th century. A century later, its parish church (still standing as a ruin in the centre of an earlier pagan earthwork), was in decay.

 Milton Abbas, <a href=BAAAGBYS.php>Dorset</a>

MILTON ABBAS

The original Milton Abbas had been established since Saxon times with an Abbey founded by King Athelstan in 938 and a Grammar School founded by Abbot Middleton in 1521. The town didn't decay, neither was it destroyed by a natural disaster; it was too busy, especially the Grammar School, for the likings of Lord Milton who, rather than move himself to a more amenable location, moved the town instead.

 Milton Abbas, Dorset

NEWTON

Newton was a "new town" which King Edward I attempted to establish on the shores of Brand's Bay in Dorset's Poole Harbour as a port to handle the trade in Purbeck Stone in 1286. Although the site was pegged out to include space for a market and a church and some houses were built, by the time of Queen Elizabeth I it had become reduced to a single cottage.

 Milton Abbas, Dorset

RINGSTEAD

Ringstead was a village which stood on the Dorset coast to the east of Weymouth. The parish was joined to Osmington in 1448.

WINTERBORNE FARRINGDON

The village, which lay a mile to the south of Dorchester fell into decay and was abandoned.

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