Horton with Woodlands

Photographs of St Wolfrida Church  above and Woodlands Church of Ascension to the right are courtesy of Peter Walker

Horton is a village 6 miles North-east of Wimborne 5 miles West of Cranborne and  2 miles East of Moor Crichel formerly in the Hundred of Badbury, division of Shaston E and Union of Wimborne and Cranborne. Horton was joined with the hamlet of Woodlands for Ecclesiastical purposes. Recorded in 1033 as Hortun from an Anglo Saxon Chronicle Hortune [DB}1086 Horton 1212 {Muddy Farm} OE horu+tun}. A monastery here was of the Benedictine Order, founded 961. The Priory was a cell to Sherborne Abbey, Wolfryth the Abbess was a Saxon related to Alfred's Royal Line. There were two mills recorded  for flour and grain in 6 acres of meadow with the River Stour flowing at the edge of the village.

The Filiol family here in 12th century held the Manor. In 1548 it was sold to the Uvedale family who were Sheriffs of Dorset 15th-17th c. The church of St Wolfrida contained part of the Priory wall inside the church situated near the chancel. It had a tower with 5 Bells. Memorials to the Filiol families were near the altar. It was rebuilt in 1720 after the tower fell down and was ruinous. It is of Early Georgian with a spire and some stained glass windows, situated close to the Manor. A Free School was founded here. The Rectory in 1291 was part of the Priory. The vicarage is a discharged one in the Deanery of Pimperne. In 1861 the population was 431 with 2,740 acres.

Woodlands hamlet is close by and was formerly a Chapelry of Horton. Originally it had no Church but a building was licensed as a Chapel. In 1892 the Church of Ascension was constructed for the Countess of Shaftesbury. Outside it looks like a chapel, brick and stone, but inside it not only has elaborate High Church fittings, but also is unusual because it was designed by Bodley to have two naves. Hastings and Napier Families were here. It has a tower built on a hill here by H Sturt Esq.

Woodlands is also the location of a Methodist (Wesleyan) Chapel, see photograph below.

After the Battle of Sedgmoor in 1685 the Duke of Monmouth (the son of Charles II) was said to have been found in a ditch forming the boundary between Horton and Woodlands hiding under a cloak. The spot is known to this day as Monmouth's Ash from an ash tree growing here.

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