Tollard Royal is a village and civil parish on Cranborne Chase, Wiltshire, England. The parish is on Wiltshire's southern boundary with Dorset and the village is southeast of the Dorset town of Shaftesbury, on the B3081 road between Shaftesbury and Sixpenny Handley.

History

Evidence of prehistoric occupation in the area includes a bowl barrow, reduced by ploughing, in the west of the parish on Woodley Down. Nearby is a linear earthwork straddling the county border, which is truncated by the Roman road from Badbury to Bath; a separate 480m section of the road survives as earthworks, with the flint road surface visible in places. On Berwick Down in the north of the parish a late Iron Age farmstead was replaced by a Romano-British settlement.

Domesday Book in 1086 recorded 31 households at Tollard. Much of the land was owned by Aiulf, whose other estates included Farnham in Dorset, immediately to the south. This was later reflected in the shape of the ancient parish, with land on both sides of the Wiltshire/Dorset border. The land in Dorset – including the hamlet of Tollard Farnham, and much of Farnham village but not its church – was merged in 1885 into Farnham civil parish.

The 'Royal' suffix came into use in the 16th century, possibly because King John was overlord of part of the manor.

Augustus Pitt Rivers had a long military career, retiring in 1882 with the rank of Lt General. By then he was already known as an ethnologist and antiquarian, and among the first scientific archaeologists; from the mid-1880s he investigated sites around the estate, In 1966 the church was designated as Grade II* listed. Today the parish is part of the Chase Benefice, a group of nine on both sides of the Dorset/Wiltshire border.

In 1553 the church had three bells and a sanctus bell. in 1728 and another by Mears and Stainbank in 1882, but the third mediaeval bell still hung in the tower in 1927. The 1728 bell has not been recast but it is no longer rung. has at its core a 13th-century hall house. Remodelling in the 16th and 17th centuries added wings, in part timber-framed. Augustus Pitt Rivers restored and extended the house, and opened it to the public around 1890 as a museum, but by 1907 it was again a residence. and is operated by the Rushmore Estate as a holiday let and a base for events such as weddings.

Amenities

Tollard Royal has a public house, the King John Inn.

Sandroyd School, an independent junior school, is near the village at Rushmore House. The nearest state schools are at Ludwell and Shaftesbury, the village's 19th-century National School having closed in 1962.

Rotherley Downs, a biological Site of Special Scientific Interest, is partly within the parish.

Larmer Tree Gardens

Augustus Pitt Rivers, army officer and founder of modern archaeology, created a pleasure garden in 1880 within part of his Rushmore Estate to the south of Tollard Royal; the first private garden to be opened for public enjoyment in the United Kingdom. Following restoration in the 1990s, the Grade II* listed gardens are open to the public and are used for weddings and other events. The annual Larmer Tree Festival of music and arts has been held there since 1990, and the End of the Road music festival since 2006.

Ashcombe Estate

Ashcombe House and its estate lies between Tollard Royal and Berwick St John, in Berwick parish. Photographer and designer Cecil Beaton lived there between 1930 and 1945; it was bought by entertainer Madonna and her then husband Guy Ritchie in 2002, and transferred to Ritchie in 2009 as part of their divorce settlement.

Notable people

William Thorne (d. 1630), Regius Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, was rector from 1601.

Vere Temple (1898–1980), wildlife artist and entomologist, lived at Tollard Royal for some time around 1951.

References

  • Village website