East Orchard

East Orchard
Church of St Thomas, East Orchard
East Orchard Location within Dorset
Population	100  [1]
OS grid reference	ST833179
Civil parish	East Orchard
Unitary authority	Dorset
Ceremonial county	Dorset
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SHAFTESBURY
Postcode district	SP7
Dialling code	01747
Police	Dorset
Fire	Dorset and Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	North Dorset
List of places UK England Dorset 50°57′38″N2°14′21″W / 50.9605°N 2.2392°W / 50.9605; -2.2392

East Orchard is a small village and parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It lies in the Blackmore Vale within the Dorset administrative district. It is situated roughly midway between the hilltop town of Shaftesbury and the riverside town of Sturminster Newton. It is separated from the neighbouring village of West Orchard by a small stream. In 2013 the estimated population of the civil parish was 100. ^[1] For local government purposes the parish is grouped with the parishes of West Orchard and Margaret Marsh, to form a Group Parish Council. ^[2]

Etymology

The name of East Orchard is first attested in a charter of 939 (surviving in a fifteenth-century copy), in the form Archet. ^[3] It does not appear in the Domesday Book ^[3] (the Horcerd found there is more likely to refer to Orchard near Church Knowle on Purbeck). ^{[4] [5]} The name derives from the Common Brittonic words that survive in modern Welsh as ar ("on") and coed ("wood"), and thus the name once meant "at the wood". Its modern form shows assimilation to the English noun orchard through folk-etymology. ^{[3] [6] : 295} The element East was added to the name later when the settlement became distinct from West Orchard.

References

1. "Parish Population Data". Dorset County Council. 20 January 2015. Retrieved 20 January 2015.
2. The Orchards and Margaret Marsh Group Parish Council, dorsetforyou.com
3. Watts, Victor, ed. (2004). The Cambridge Dictionary of English Place-Names, Based on the Collections of the English Place-Name Society. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. ISBN   9780521168557., s.v. Orchard.
4. National Archives
5. H. C. Darby, G. R. Versey, (2008), Domesday Gazetteer, page 124. Cambridge University Press.
6. Coates, Richard; Breeze, Andrew (2000). Celtic Voices, English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in Britain. Stamford: Tyas. ISBN   1900289415..

External links

Media related to East Orchard at Wikimedia Commons