In 1870-72, John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales described Abbotsbury like this:
ABBOTSBURY, a village, a parish, and a subdistrict, in the district of Weymouth, Dorset. The village stands in a vale, about a mile from the sea, 7¼ miles W of the Weymouth railway, and 9 SW of Dorchester. It has a post office‡ under Dorchester, and an inn. It was for merly a market town, and has now a fair on 10 July. ...
Most of its inhabitants engage in fishing. The parish contains also the hamlets of Rodden and Elworth; and exhibits picturesque features of both shore and surface. Acres, 5,616; of which 545 are water. Real property, £5,651. Pop., 1,089. Houses, 213. The property is divided among a few. The rocks belong to the shelly oolite. The coast commands brilliant views, and is flanked by Chesil Bank, occasioning tumultuous tides. See Chesil Bank. St. Catherine's Chapel, romantically situated on the crown of a hill between the village and the sea, is a very strong edifice of the 15th century, with large buttresses, a clerestory, and an octagonal tower, and serves as a landmark to mariners. A Benedictine Abbey was founded at Abbotsbury, in 1044, by Orcus, steward of King Canute; and passed, at the dissolution, to the Strangeways. The gateway of its church, the walls of a dormitory and barn, and some fragments scattered over a large area, still remain. A swannery, which belonged to the Abbey, and is said to have contained about 8,000 swans, still exists, with about 1,000 swans, and is connected with a decoy for the extensive capture of wild fowl. A castellated seat of the Earl of Ilchester, the present proprietor, is adjacent. An ancient fortification, 1½ mile to the west, occupies 20 acres, comprises very high ramparts, ditches, and redoubts, and commands a noble view. Hardy's Monument, About 3 miles distant, commands a still nobler view; and the key for it may be had at Portisham. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury. Value, £140.* Patron, the Earl of Ilchester. The church adjoins the Abbey ruins, and is an old embattled edifice with a curious weather worn sculpture over the west door. A school has £20 a year from endowment; and other charities £19.-The subdistrict includes three parishes-Acres, 11,358. Pop., 2,034. Houses, 405.
Abbotsbury through time
Abbotsbury is now part of West Dorset district. Click here for graphs and data of how West Dorset has changed over two centuries. For statistics about Abbotsbury itself, go to Units and Statistics.
GB Historical GIS / University of Portsmouth, History of Abbotsbury in West Dorset | Map and description, A Vision of Britain through Time.
URL: https://www.visionofbritain.org.uk/place/13445
Date accessed: 23rd April 2024
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