| Milborne St Andrew |
||
Two views of The Square in Milborne St Andrew. The top photo was taken about 1950 looking towards The Causeway and the second photo shows the Post Office about 1960. Having just escaped being closed you can still get your stamps here.
Little England Cottage showing the front as it was late 19th century. The building in the centre was knocked down in the 1950's to widen the road.
Little England Cottage as it is today from a similar position to the photo above.
|
Milborne St Andrew |
|
The name Milborne is derived from the old English mylen burna meaning "mill stream". The earliest recorded history of the village is dated about 901 when King Alfred (Aelfred) the Great bequeathed it to his son. Alfred became ruler of the West Saxons, and hence King of Wessex, after he and his brother defeated the Danes at the Battle of Ashdown in Berkshire. The later death of his brother Ethelred left Alfred as successor in 871 who gained a reputation of being a great warrior as well as a social reformer building towns and promoted education by starting schools and translating texts from Latin. He also is considered to have been the first King of all England. Some time later Alfred's Grandson, King Athelstan, gave the area of land to the Abbey at Milton. By 934AD, in an old copy of an Anglo Saxon charter, the village was known as Muleburne and later, in a volume of the Domesday Book for the area dated around 1086, it was noted as Melborne. The area has a complicated history of ownership and division within the parish. At one time it was made up of a number of manors and hamlets such as Milborne Abbatston, Audrueston, Churcheston, Deverel and Mamford. By 1294 the name had become Muleburne St Andrew and in 1391 it was shown as Milborne Seint Andrewe. The addition of St Andrew is from the dedication of the church to distinguish the place from Milborne Stileham. The summer of 1348 was abnormally wet and grain lay rotting in the fields due to the nearly constant rains. With the harvest so adversely affected it seemed certain that there would be a food shortages but a far worse enemy was set to appear. The Black Death was brought to this country from the far East via passage along the trade routes. It is thought that a ship landing at Weymouth in June of 1348 was responsible for bringing the Black Death to England. From this simple beginning the disease spread throughout England with dizzying speed and fatal consequences. To the south of Milborne St Andrew there is the site of an ancient village traces of which may be seen today. One of the consequence of the spread from Weymouth of the Black Death or "plague" was that this village was abandoned and has never been returned to. Whilst many deaths of the time went unrecorded it is known that the Vicar at the time, John de Chalk, did died of the plague. Over the next 2 years the Black Death killed between 30-40% of the entire population of this country. It killed 30,000 of London's 70,000 inhabitants alone. Given that the pre-plague population of England was in the region of 5-6 million people, fatalities may have reached as high as 2 million. The most famous family associated with Milborne is the Morton's. Cardinal Morton (1410 - 1500) become Archbishop of Canterbury and later Chancellor to Henry VIIth. The family patronized both Milborne and nearby Bere Regis and there remain a number of monuments in the village church of St Andrews dedicated to them. A sealed vault in the church is the location were many of the ancestors were buried, including a black Jamaican servant. Population of Milborne St Andrew in 1801 was 172, in 1901 it had grown to 239 reducing to 221 by 1931. |
||
