Lytchett Matravers

Lytchett Matravers /ˈlɪtʃɪt məˈtrævərz/ is a large village and civil parish in Dorset, England. The 2011 census recorded the parish as having 1,439 households and a population of 3,424.

The name of Lytchett Matravers is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Lichet. This name comes from the Brittonic words that survive in modern Welsh as llwyd ("grey") and coed ("wood"). The name is first attested with addition of Matravers in 1280, in forms such as Lichet Mautravers. This was used to distinguish the settlement from Lytchett Minster and arose because, following the Norman Conquest, William I granted the manor to Hugh Maltravers, attested as the owner of the estate in the Domesday book. (Prior to the Conquest, a Danish lord called Tholf held the manor.)

An alternative derivation of the name Lytchett is from the word lynchet or linchet, which is an earth terrace found on the side of a hill. Lynchets are a feature of ancient field systems of the British Isles. Such terraces were visible in Garden Wood above the Church and Manor in the 1970's.^{[citation needed]}

Following the Norman Conquest, the Maltravers family held the village for about 300 years, until the Black Death reduced the population in the second half of the 14th century. The surviving villagers deserted the original village, sited around the church and manor house, and resettled further up the hill.^{[citation needed]}

The remaining female heir to the title "in abeyance", Eleanor Maltravers, inherited the title on the death of her sister, Joan, in or after 1376. She married John FitzAlan, 1st Baron Arundel on 17 February 1359.^{[citation needed]}

The estate was later bought from the Arundels by the Trenchard family, who demolished the former manor house and built a new one that incorporated, amongst other facilities, a ballroom and a tower. When the Trenchard family foundered in 1829, the manor passed to the Dillon family who added the name Trenchard to their own. However, the newly titled Dillon-Trenchards chose not to occupy the newer manor house. The Dillon-Trenchards left Lytchett Matravers in the latter part of the 20th century.^{[citation needed]}

Lytchett Matravers has developed over the 20th century from a settlement of mostly scattered cottages with large curtilages to a village with a moderately high housing density. In the 1920s and 1930s there was some ribbon development on the main access road. This continued into the 1950s with the addition of small scale infill housing behind.^{[citation needed]} Since the 1970s development has mainly been through housing estates. In the 1960s and early 1970s many of the original cob and thatch cottages were either demolished or greatly altered, but there are still 13 thatched cottages in the village, some of which retain their original curtilage.^{[citation needed]} Recently some modern developments have included a smattering of thatched houses in an acknowledgement of the local vernacular architecture.

There is a Lytchett Matravers and Upton electoral ward for Dorset Council. It is larger than the parish, extending westward towards Bulbury. The 2011 Census recorded the ward's population as 3,747.