Piddletrenthide

Piddletrenthide
Piddletrenthide church and a lane in the village
Piddletrenthide  Piddletrenthide shown within Dorset
Population	691
OS grid reference	ST703000
District	West Dorset
Shire county	Dorset
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Police	Dorset
Fire	Dorset
Ambulance	South Western
EU Parliament	South West England
List of places: UK • England • Dorset

Piddletrenthide is a village in west Dorset, England, situated in the Piddle valley on the dip slope of the Dorset Downs, eight miles north of Dorchester. The village has a population of 691 (As of 2001). Many people consider the place name to be inherently funny, and it has become something of a running joke in parts of the British media (for example: TV Times 25 April-1 May 1970, a lengthy correspondence in The Times in 1974, The Times again, 27 March 1999, The Sunday Times, 22 December 2002 and 25 September 2005, and The Guardian, 8 May 2004).

Over the west door of the church-tower is the Latin inscription

• "Est pydeltrenth villa in dorsedie comitatu Nascitur in illa quam rexit Vicariatu 1487"

This is an early use of Arabic numerals in England. It is remarkable that Arabic numerals were used in such a remote village when the use of Roman numerals continued for another century elsewhere in England.

Piddletrenthide gets its extraordinary name from the fact that

• (a) it is on the River Piddle, and
• (b) it was assessed for thirty hides in the Domesday Book.

Piddletrenthide is a very long village and divided into three tithings. The church and manor house is the upper tithing, another group of cottages form the middle, and the third, White Lackington.

Piddletrenthide has one of the finest village churches in Dorset with a splendid 15th century tower and gruesome gargoyles. The south doorway and piers of the chancel arch are Norman.

The now deceased BBC Radio broadcaster Ralph Wightman (who was the model for Kenneth Williams' country character Arthur Fallowfield), came from here and was noted in his radio broadcasts for his fine Dorset accent.

Piddletrenthide was also featured as the hometown of Jem Kellaway, one the main protagonists in Tracy Chevalier's 18th-century-set novel Burning Bright.

There is a spring which feeds into the River Piddle at the particularly picturesque spot of Mourning Well, reached by a footpath from the Poachers Inn at the Alton Pancras end of the village.

Scrumpy and Western artist Trevor Crozier wrote a song entitled "The Piddletrenthide Jug Band" for Dorset folk group The Yetties.

References

grid reference ST703000

External links

• Census data