West Orchard

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West Orchard
West Orchard from the South - geograph.org.uk - 420605.jpg
West Orchard
Dorset UK location map.svg
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West Orchard
Location within Dorset
Population50 
OS grid reference ST823164
Civil parish
  • West Orchard
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
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
List of places
UK
England
Dorset
50°56′52″N2°15′12″W / 50.9478°N 2.2532°W / 50.9478; -2.2532

West Orchard is a small village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It is situated in the Blackmore Vale in the Dorset administrative district, approximately halfway between the towns of Shaftesbury and Sturminster Newton. It is separated from the adjacent settlement of East Orchard by a stream. In 2013 the civil parish had an estimated population of 50. [1] For local government purposes the parish is grouped with the parishes of East Orchard and Margaret Marsh, to form a Group Parish Council. [2]

Contents

St Luke's Church was rebuilt in 1876–77 to the designs of Thomas Henry Wyatt, but the chancel is 15th-century. [3]

Etymology

The name of West Orchard is first attested in a charter of 939 (surviving in a fifteenth-century copy), in the form Archet. 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. [4] [5] : 295  The element West was added to the name later when the settlement became distinct from East Orchard.

References

  1. ↑ "Parish Population Data". Dorset County Council. 20 January 2015. Retrieved 8 February 2015.
  2. ↑ The Orchards and Margaret Marsh Group Parish Council, dorsetforyou.com
  3. ↑ Historic England (16 August 1960). "CHURCH OF UNKNOWN DEDICATION, West Orchard (1110395)". National Heritage List for England . Retrieved 12 January 2021.
  4. ↑ 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.
  5. ↑ Coates, Richard; Breeze, Andrew (2000). Celtic Voices, English Places: Studies of the Celtic Impact on Place-Names in Britain. Stamford: Tyas. ISBN   1900289415..

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