Description
Litton Cheney, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands 4 miles from Bridport station on the G.W.R. It has a post office under Dorchester; money order and telegraph office, Abbotsbury. The parish comprises also the hamlets of Nether Coombe, Higher Egerton, Ashby, and Stancombe. Acreage, 3341; population of the civil parish, 427; of the ecclesiastical, 463. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £590 with residence. Patron, Exeter College, Oxford. The church is ancient and good, with a tower, and contains an ancient font, a monument of the Dawbeny family, and several brasses. There is a Methodist chapel.
Parish Church
The church of St. Mary is an ancient building of stone, in the Perpendicular style, and consists of chancel, nave, transepts, south porch and a lofty embattled western tower containing a clock and 6 bells: the font is formed of the inverted base of a Norman circular pier; the pulpit has traceried Perpendicular panels: there is a monument to George Dawbeny, of Gorwell, who died in 1612. brasses to Anna Henvill and Margaret Henvill, d. 1561; and to Ralph Henvill, of Leoke, gent. d. 9 Dec. 1644: the church was restored in 1878, and affords 220 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1624.
Villages, Hamlets, &c.
Ashby, a hamlet in Litton-Cheney parish, Dorset, 9 miles W of Dorchester.
Eggerton, Higher, a hamlet in Litton Cheney parish, Dorsetshire, 4 1/2 miles ENE of Bridport. Eggerton Hill here, but partly within two other parishes, is crowned by a Roman camp of 47 1/4 acres, 1386 feet by 749 of oval outline; the area studded with tumuli and commanding a fine view, the N and E sides doubly ditched, the W side triply ditched; the two entrances on the NW and SE skilfully made by overlapping banks.
Coombe, Nether, a hamlet in Litton-Cheney parish, Dorsetshire, 5 1/2 miles E of Bridport.
