Cheselbourne (sometimes spelled Chesilborne[2] or Cheselborne) is a village and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the Dorset Downs, 7 miles (11 km) north-east of Dorchester. The parish is at an altitude of 75 to 245 metres (approximately 250 to 800 feet) and covers an area of 1,175 hectares (2,900 acres); the underlying geology is chalk.[3] In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 296.[1]
The village, which contains a mix of buildings of different ages and styles, is spread along four lanes which meet here. It has a public house called the Rivers Arms. The 13th- to 14th-century parish church has a pinnacled tower with battlements, numerous gargoyles[4] and a canonical sundial.
In 1086, in the Domesday Book Cheselbourne was recorded as Ceseburne;[5] it had 36 households, 10 acres (4.0 ha) of meadow and one mill. It was in the hundred of Hilton and the lord and tenant-in-chief was Shaftesbury Abbey.[6]
Cheselbourne used to be the site of a tradition known as "Treading in the Wheat", in which young women from the village would walk the fields on Palm Sunday, dressed in white.[4]
At Lyscombe Farm in the northwest of the parish are the remains of an early 13th-century chapel. The nave was once used as a bakehouse and then a farmworker's dwelling. In 1957, a Dutch barn was built over the ruins.[4]
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