Cheselbourne

Cheselbourne
Parish Church of St Martin
Cheselbourne Location within Dorset
Population	296 [1]
OS grid reference	SY763997
Unitary authority	Dorset
Shire county	Dorset
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	Dorchester
Postcode district	DT2
Police	Dorset
Fire	Dorset and Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	West Dorset
List of places UK England Dorset 50°47′48″N 2°20′17″W / 50.7966°N 2.338°W / 50.7966; -2.338

Cheselbourne (sometimes spelled Chesilborne^[2] 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.^[3] In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 296.^[1]

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^[4] and a canonical sundial.

In 1086, in the Domesday Book Cheselbourne was recorded as Ceseburne;^[5] 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.^[6]

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.^[4]

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.^[4]

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