Lyscombe Hill

Melcombe Horsey is a civil parish in the county of Dorset in South West England. It contains the small settlements of Melcombe Bingham, Bingham's Melcombe and Higher Melcombe, the last being the site of the deserted village of Melcombe Horsey. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 141. Bingham's Melcombe is a medieval house. It takes its name from Robert Bingham who acquired the property through marriage in the 13th century. It remained in the Bingham family until 1895. The house is believed to date from the early 16th century. It was substantially restored and remodelled in 1893-4 by Evelyn Hellicar (1862-1929)

At 251 metres, Ball Hill is one of the highest hills in the county of Dorset, England, and is on the Wessex Ridgeway.

Mappowder is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. The parish lies approximately 9 miles (14 kilometres) southeast of the town of Sherborne and covers about 1,900 acres (770 hectares) at an elevation of 75 to 160 metres (250 to 520 feet). It is sited on Corallian limestone soil at the southern edge of the Blackmore Vale, close to the northern scarp face of the Dorset Downs. In the 2011 census the parish had 71 dwellings, 69 households and a population of 166.The village name comes from mapuldor, Old English for 'maple tree'. In 1086 in the Domesday Book Mappowder was recorded as Mapledre and appears in four entries; it was in Buckland Newton Hundred, had 33.3 households and a total taxable value of 8.3 geld units.The church, dedicated to St Peter & St Paul, is Perpendicular and was built in the late 15th and 16th centuries. However, it includes features remaining from an earlier 12th-century church. The chancel was extended in 1868 by the Wingfield Digby family of Sherborne Castle, who owned the village in Victorian times. Mappowder was once the home of the Coker family, who built a large mansion here in 1654, although this was pulled down in the mid-eighteenth century. The building which occupies the site now, Mappowder Court, is mostly of mid-eighteenth-century origin, with some earlier remnants. The stone gateposts at the entrance remain from the original Coker manor; these are topped by carved human heads which in 1905 Sir Frederick Treves described as "Blackamore's" these being "those indefinite natives of the tropics having been used for the crest of the Coker family." In 1559 Henry Coker (c.1528–1596) was member of parliament for the constituency of Shaftesbury. Mappowder Court is listed by English Heritage as Grade II*, with the gateposts and courtyard walls as Grade II.Novelist and short story writer Theodore Francis Powys lived in Mappowder for the last 13 years of his life; he died and was buried here in 1953.

Doles Ash is a farm in Dorset, England, a few kilometers east of Piddletrenthide and south of Plush. The farm features in Thomas Hardy's Tess of the D'urbervilles as Flintcomb-Ash, the "starve-acre" farm where Tess goes to dig swedes with Marion.

Plush is a small village in the English county of Dorset. It lies within the civil parish of Piddletrenthide in the west of the county, and is approximately 8 miles (13 km) north of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in a small side-valley of the River Piddle at an altitude of 130 metres (430 ft) and is surrounded by chalk hills which rise to 251 metres (823 ft) at Ball Hill, a kilometre to the northeast, and 261 metres (856 ft) at Lyscombe Hill, 2½ kilometres to the east. Plush consists of a few thatched cottages, a public house, a Regency manor house and a small church dedicated to St John the Baptist; the church was designed in 1848 by Benjamin Ferrey, a Gothic Revival architect and close friend of Pugin.

The Dorset Downs are an area of chalk downland in the centre of the county Dorset in south west England. The downs are the most western part of a larger chalk formation which also includes (from west to east) Cranborne Chase, Salisbury Plain, Hampshire Downs, Chiltern Hills, North Downs and South Downs.

Ansty is a village in Dorset, England, north of Cheselbourne and west of Milton Abbas. It consists of the settlements of Higher Ansty, Lower Ansty, Pleck (also known as Little Ansty) and Ansty Cross. The Hall & Woodhouse brewing company founded a brewery in the village in 1777, and brewing continued here until the 1940s. The village hall used to be a brewery building, and the old malthouse became Malthouse Cottages.

Ansty Cross is a village in Dorset, England.

Cheselbourne (sometimes spelled Chesilborne or Cheselborne) is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the Dorset Downs, 7 miles (11 km) north-east of Dorchester. The parish is at an altitude of 75 to 245 metres (approximately 250 to 800 feet) and covers an area of 1,175 hectares (2,900 acres); the underlying geology is chalk. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 296. The village, which contains a mix of buildings of different ages and styles, is spread along four lanes which meet here. It has a public house called the Rivers Arms. The 13th- to 14th-century parish church has a pinnacled tower with battlements, numerous gargoyles and a canonical sundial. In 1086, in the Domesday Book Cheselbourne was recorded as Ceseburne; it had 36 households, 10 acres (4.0 ha) of meadow and one mill. It was in the hundred of Hilton and the lord and tenant-in-chief was Shaftesbury Abbey. Cheselbourne used to be the site of a tradition known as "Treading in the Wheat", in which young women from the village would walk the fields on Palm Sunday, dressed in white. At Lyscombe Farm in the northwest of the parish are the remains of an early 13th-century chapel. The nave was once used as a bakehouse and then a farmworker's dwelling. In 1957, a Dutch barn was built over the ruins.

Stoke Wake is a hamlet and civil parish, formerly part of the Whiteway hundred in north Dorset, England. It is situated under Bulbarrow Hill on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, west of Blandford Forum. Dorset County Council's 2013 mid-year estimate of the parish population is 60.In 1086 Stoke Wake was recorded in the Domesday Book as Stoche; it had 15 households, 4 ploughlands, 15 acres (6 hectares) of meadow and one mill. It was in the hundred of Hilton and the lord and tenant-in-chief was Shaftesbury Abbey.The parish church was built in 1872.

Bulbarrow Hill is a 274 metres (899 ft) hill near Woolland, five miles west of Blandford Forum and ten miles (16 km) north of Dorchester in Dorset, England. The chalk hill is part of the scarp of Dorset Downs, which form the western end of the Southern England Chalk Formation. Part of the hill is used for arable agriculture, but most is calcareous grassland. The hill overlooks the Blackmore Vale, and offers views of Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire and Devon. Rawlsbury Camp, a five acre Iron Age hill fort, is situated on a promontory of the hill. Little remains of the camp except the twin embankments and intermediate ditch which surrounded it. The hill gets its name from the several barrows that adorn the hill. Additionally, a medieval trackway crosses the ridge. The hill is a popular launch site for paragliders. The TV presenter Jack Hargreaves who died in 1994 had his ashes spread on Bulbarrow Hill above his home, Raven Cottage.

Piddletrenthide Liberty was a liberty in the county of Dorset, England, containing the following parishes: Gorewood (from 1858) Minterne Magna (part) Piddletrenthide