Monument record MDO4451 - Medieval town, Milton Abbas

Milton Abbas is a medieval and post medieval town mentioned in Domesday. There were 104 taxpayers in 1333. Between 1771 and 1790 the town was almost completely demolished to make way for extended landscaping for Milton Abbey and the inhabitants rehoused in a new village to the south east. The site was then landscaped by Lancelot Brown.

<1> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume III (Central) Part 2, 199 (Monograph). SDO136.

‘(20) EARTHWORK REMAINS (800019) of the former town of Milton Abbas cover about 25 acres on either side of the Milborne Brook, S. of (1). As early as 1086 the town, which grew up S. of the abbey precinct, was one of the largest settlements in central Dorset (D.B. Vol. I, 78a) and it retained its importance throughout the mediaeval period and even after the Dissolution. As many as 104 taxpayers are listed in 1333, and 137 people signed the Protestation Returns of 1641–2 (Dorset Protestation Returns, ed. E. A. Fry, 1912, 52). Between 1771 and 1790 the town was almost completely demolished and the inhabitants were rehoused in a new village to the S.E. (7); the site of the old town was then landscaped by Lancelot Brown (M. W. Beresford & J. K. S. St. Joseph, Mediaeval England 1958, 106; M. W. Beresford, History on the Ground 1957, 198–203; Dorset Procs. XXV (1904), 1–7). The earthwork remains complement the plan of the town which was made by William Woodward in 1769–1771, before the destruction (Plate 176). The plan is correct in outline, but many minor details were left out and it is clear that the rectilinear drawing of hedges and streets is schematic.

Of the northern third of the town, comprising the former Market Street and High Street, very little remains. It was destroyed in the garden landscaping and only one cottage (12) and the base of a presumed Market Cross survive; the latter, a roughly shaped block of stone with a square mortice for the cross-shaft, lies on the grass lawn about 100 yds. E.S.E. of (1). Brick foundations have been found, 2 ft. to 3 ft. below the present ground surface, S. of the cross, on either side of the former High Street.

Outside the gardens, in the park to the S., the remains are better preserved. Little remains of Newport Street, but Broad Street is almost wholly identifiable, except at one point where it has been blocked; the street survives as a hollow-way 20 ft. to 40 ft. wide and up to 2 ft. deep. Fishway Street, its S.W. continuation, survives in a similar form. Side lanes off these streets are preserved as well-marked hollow-ways but the sites of the houses that existed in 1771 are now ill-defined hollows. Several well-preserved rectangular building sites, bounded by low banks, are seen on the ground, but none of them is shown as a house on Woodward's map, indicating that they were already abandoned in his time. Along Broad Street a few of the boundaries of the gardens are preserved, and there are other slight scarps and banks which are not shown on the plan.

The line of Back Street is largely obliterated by a modern drive, but almost all of the house sites are preserved as irregular scoops cut back into the valley side. The boundaries of the garden plots to the E. of these houses are all preserved as banks or scarps, 6 ins. to 1 ft. high; they exactly correspond with those shown on the 1771 map. Within the plots various low terraces and building sites indicate the different layouts of individual gardens. Other hollow-ways, terrace-ways, banks and scarps, on either side of the existing Fish Pond, correspond with roads and closes that existed in 1771. Soil marks seen on air photographs (R.A.F. CPE/UK 1934: 3173–4) to the W. of the remains are probably the boundaries of other closes.

Large quantities of pottery dating from the 12th—18th centuries have been picked up all over the area of the remains.’

<2> Royal Air Force, 11-APR-47, RAF/CPE/UK/1974 4355 (Aerial Photograph). SDO17843.

<3> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1994, Medieval Village Research Group Index, PRN 431 (Index). SDO16386.

<4> Royal Commission on Historic Monuments, Externally held archive: RCH01/096 RCHME Inventory: Dorset III (Central) (Unpublished document). SDO17384.

<5> Medieval Village Research Group Archive - measured drawings (Unpublished document). SDO19306.

<6> Historic England, Historic England Archive, 880916 (Index). SDO14738.

RCHME: Milton Abbas remains of former town, Dorset

<7> National Record of the Historic Environment, 205817 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Oct 27 2023 2:52PM