Gutch Common

Semley is a village in Sedgehill and Semley civil parish in Wiltshire, England, about 3 miles (4.8 km) north-east of Shaftesbury in neighbouring Dorset. The hamlet of Sem Hill lies about a quarter of a mile west of the village. The River Sem, from which the village takes its name, forms part of the northern boundary of the parish.

Castle Rings is a univallate hill fort in the parish of Donhead St Mary in Wiltshire in England. The fort is a Scheduled Ancient Monument, with a list entry identification number of 1005698. Castle Rings has been dated to the Iron Age and is situated at an altitude of 228 metres (748 ft) upon Upper Greensand sandstone beds. The main bulk of the fort enclosure lies within the boundaries of Donhead St Mary parish but some of the outlying earthworks are situated in the neighbouring Sedgehill and Semley parish. In the mid-1980s a metal detectorist unearthed a hoard of stater coins of the Durotriges tribe within the hill fort.Lady Theodora Grosvenor described the fort in her 1867 book Motcombe, Past and Present: ...a fine encampment, enclosing a space of about 12 acres, and considered to have been originally British, which exists within the angle where the roads from Semley Church and Donhead to Shaftesbury unite by Wincombe Lodge. It bears the name of Castle Rings, and its embankments and ditches are strongly defined, though, from being overgrown with copse-wood, seldom observed.

Shute House, Donhead St Mary, Wiltshire, England is a former rectory, now a private home, notable for its gardens designed by Geoffrey Jellicoe. Situated about 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) east of Shaftesbury, the house and garden are at the very southern edge of Wiltshire, on the border with Dorset. The house is a Grade II listed building, while the gardens have a higher Grade II* listing on Historic England's Register of Historic Parks and Gardens. They have been described as Jellicoe's finest work. He worked at Shute House between 1969 and 1983 for the then owners, Michael and Anne Tree, returning to revitalise the garden for new owners in the mid-1990s, in what became his final work before his death in 1996.

Donhead St Mary is a village and civil parish in southwest Wiltshire, England, on the county border with Dorset. The village lies about 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) east of the Dorset town of Shaftesbury and stands on high ground above the River Nadder, which rises in the parish. In the south of the parish, on the A30 Salisbury-Shaftesbury road, are the village of Ludwell and its neighbouring hamlet of Birdbush; Charlton hamlet is south of the road. To the north are the hamlets of Coombe, comprising Higher Coombe, Middle Coombe and Lower Coombe. In the north-west of the parish, near Shaftesbury, is the hamlet of Higher Wincombe.

Pythouse, sometimes spelled Pyt House and pronounced pit-house, is a country house in southwest Wiltshire, in the west of England. It is about 2+1⁄2 miles (4.0 km) west of the village of Tisbury. Described as a "fine classical house", Pythouse is set in parkland with a ha-ha separating the formal house lawn from surrounding parkland on which livestock may graze. It has an Ionic portico, and the front elevation may have inspired the design of Philipps House at nearby Dinton, which was begun in 1813 and designed by Sir Jeffry Wyatville. Leigh Court in Somerset was later built to the plans used for Pythouse.

St Mary's School was a private Roman Catholic day and boarding school for girls, founded in 1945 in a rural setting near Shaftesbury, England. The school had a sixth form and was a member of the Girls' Schools Association. After operating at a loss for some time, the school closed in July 2020. Although the school's postal address was in Dorset, its site lay just over the county border in Wiltshire, within the parish of Donhead St Mary.

Donhead St Andrew is a village and civil parish in Wiltshire, England, on the River Nadder. It lies 4 miles (6.4 km) east of the Dorset market town of Shaftesbury. The parish includes the hamlets of West End, Milkwell and (on the A30) Brook Waters. Ferne House, on the site of a former manor house, is within the parish.

Sedgehill and Semley is a civil parish in the English county of Wiltshire, about 3 miles (4.8 km) north of the town of Shaftesbury on the main A350 road. It is in the southwest of Wiltshire and adjoins Dorset. The parish includes the villages of Sedgehill and Semley, and the hamlets of Barkers Hill (in the southeast, towards Donhead St Andrew) and Sem Hill (near Semley). The population of the parish at the 2011 census was 601.The River Sem forms part of the northern boundary of the parish, and is fed by several streams which cross the parish in a generally northeasterly direction. The Sem joins the River Nadder in the northeast corner of the parish near Wardour, and the short eastern boundary of the parish follows the course of the Nadder.

Semley was a railway station in Wiltshire, England. It was served by trains on the West of England Main Line and was the railhead for the town of Shaftesbury, Dorset, 2+1⁄2 miles (4 km) to the south. Although several plans were made to give Shaftesbury its own station, the town's position on a hill prevented this. The nearest station to Shaftesbury is now Gillingham.

Higher Wincombe is a farm and small hamlet in the parish of Donhead St Mary, Wiltshire, England. It lies at the head of the Nadder Valley, just beyond the north-east edge of the town of Shaftesbury, Dorset and within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.

Ludwell is a small village in south Wiltshire, England, approximately 3 miles (5 km) east of the Dorset town of Shaftesbury. It lies within the Cranborne Chase and West Wiltshire Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty, on the A30 Salisbury-Shaftesbury road. For the purposes of local government, Ludwell is part of Donhead St Mary civil parish. Peckons Hill, Birdbush and Brook Waters are neighbouring hamlets to the northeast of Ludwell, along the A30 towards Ansty and Swallowcliffe. The village has a primary school which was established in 1875, and an Anglican church, St John the Baptist, built in 1839 in Neo-Norman style with a two-tower west facade.Notable buildings are Ludwell Stores & Post Office, a late 18th-century house with attached former bakery; and the Grove Arms public house, from the early 17th century with additions in the early 18th and 19th. Other businesses include T. Buttlings traditional butchers and Greenacre farm shop.

Lower Coombe and Ferne Brook Meadows (grid reference ST916236) is an 11.34 hectare biological Site of Special Scientific Interest in Wiltshire, England which sits on the Upper Greensand and Gault Clay. The site is home to rare fen meadow and neutral grassland communities in an unimproved grassland. Species such as Triglochin palustris, Caltha palustris and Oenanthe pimpinelloides can be found at the location. Three streams, which form headwaters of the River Nadder flow through the site. It was notified in 2002.