Marnhull and Hinton St Mary

With church, pub and manor house surrounded by a charming miscellany of gardened cottages, some dating back to the 16th century, Hinton St Mary is just one of Dorset’s many attractive villages. But it became set apart in 1963, when the village blacksmith uncovered fragments of an extensive Roman mosaic. Excavation revealed an almost complete floor, extending across two rooms and combining classical hunting and pagan scenes with a central roundel portraying the bust of a man before a Chi-Rho symbol. Interpreted as the image of Christ, it is one of the earliest known representations and the only such floor mosaic. The rooms are thought to have been part of a villa, possibly a dining or reception room or perhaps the private chapel of the villa’s owner. The mosaic is now in the British Museum.

Before the Dissolution of the Monasteries, the village was a lay-settlement and small nunnery of St Mary’s Abbey Church at Shaftsbury. The estate was eventually bought by Sir William Pitt, who held high office successively under Elizabeth I, James I and Charles I, and has passed through various branches of the family to the present day. One of the most notable family members was Augustus Pitt Rivers, who, after a career in the army, inherited the Cranborne estates. Already a passionate collector of ethnographic artefacts, he began a methodical excavation of local prehistoric sites, recording the finds and their context. He was appointed the first Inspector of Ancient Monuments and is regarded as a founder of modern archaeology.

More scattered, Marnhull lies to the north on a limestone prominence that provided stone for many of the buildings. Village history begins with Saxon charters of the 10th century, but archaeological excavation in the locality has discovered Iron Age and Roman settlements together with a cemetery containing over 20 Romano-British skeletons. Nash Court, just to the north, originally belonged to Glastonbury Abbey, but Henry VIII bestowed it upon Catherine Parr, his final wife. Overlooking Blackmore Vale, the area was traditionally given to dairy farming, and in Thomas Hardy’s Tess of the D’Urbervilles, Marnhull became ‘Marlott’, the birthplace of his ill-fated heroine, who buried her baby in the churchyard of St Peter’s. The tale wanders across the Wessex countryside before reaching its tragic climax at Stonehenge.

Walk up from the church and turn right in front of the White Horse. Pass a side street then shortly fork left by Barley Yard House. Reaching a sharp bend, leave through a waymarked gate on the right. Turn left and follow a track downhill towards a wood. Wind right and left to carry on along a rough track within a belt of trees. Bearing slightly right, continue across a field to a plank bridge. Maintain the heading across another field to an indented corner and bear left beside trees screening a small water treatment works. Cross a track to a stiled bridge and head up by the right hedge to Eastwell Lane.

Go right to a bend by a cottage and turn off left along a farm track. At a junction, swing left and then right, later keeping ahead past stock sheds at Church Farm to emerge at Marnhull.

Head left past The Crown Inn and keep straight on at a junction along New Street.

After 0.5 miles (800m), opposite Kentisworth Road, turn left along a lane. At Goddard’s Farm, bear right to skirt a pond and walk up beside the left hedge to a gap. Wind through consecutive gates and follow the right hedge, slipping over a stile at its end and continuing beyond the end of the left fence to a gate in the corner. Keep going by the right hedge to come out at Mowes Lane.

Joining a path beside the gate opposite, bypass a farmyard to the field behind. Head away by the left boundary to a gate and stile in the corner. The ongoing path leads past a wooded pool to continue at the left edge of another field. Through consecutive gates at the bottom corner, go right at the top of the next field. Pass through a gap and swing left above a final field to cross a stile and emerge onto Cott Mill Lane.

Walk downhill for 150yds (137m) then leave left on a bridleway signed to Wood Lane. Wind left and right to follow a grass track through a plantation. Where the track swings left, continue forward to emerge at the edge of a field. Go left up the edge of the field and then bear right. Reaching a stile, cross it and then another and bear right along the hedge in the adjacent field. Turn within the corner to a gate, exiting onto a track between hedges that leads out left to a lane at the edge of Hinton St Mary.

Take the lane opposite and go first right. On the bend, leave ahead through a metal field gate and cross a small field to a gap in the hedge/fence behind houses. Walk out to a street that returns you to the junction beside the White Horse.