This peaceful village lies in the Hundred of Bradbury, and gets is name from the Saxon Sceap and uuic and recorded in the Domesday Survey under this name and meant Sheep  Village. It was recorded as Shepwyk in 1238 which ws Old English and it was the smallest of four manors in East Dorset and pre-dates the Norman period,

The manor and the other three were seen as one and before the Battle of Hastings they were known as King Edwards Land and were counted as one.

The River Stour is nearby and so is the Church of St Bartholomew which is dated 12th centur and has a square tower which has been restored over the centuries.

The village is halway on the B3082 road from Blandford to Wimborne and on the opposite side of the river lies Sturminster Marshall.

In the village centre is an old cross which has been made into a war memorial, and often when the Stour flooded it turned it into an island. Two mills existed here both for corn and grain.

A school was founded here in 1818 by James Alexander and William Wake was born here in 1657 and he became the Archbishop of Canterbury and his father was an extremely wealthy landowner here during the 1630s.

Bradbury Rings is at the top of the village and this is a prehistoric three tiered earthwork from the Iron Age and artefacts have been found here that da te from the Romans 6-7 Century AD and there are still signs of Ackling Dyke, the old  Roman Road. And near the Stour and While Mill Bridge is the mediaeval Crawford Bridge.

There is a legend here that is told in a poem in the Anchor Inn alongside a ship on the wall of the bar and also at Percy Torey's farm there is a weather vane depicting a crab and men with a wheelbarrow.

The story goes that a fishmonger from Poole was on his way to Bere Regis when he lost one of his best and biggest crabs. Later it was found by a local clown who thought it was the devil in disguise and stamped on it. But as it had so many legs it frightened him and he ran to the village to raise the alarm. The wise man of the village who was a local shepherd was called on and taken by a barrow to the crab and full of fear he said 'Tis a land monster, wheel me off'.

The fishmonger heard that his crab had been found and returned and picked it up and carried on his journey,

On the Wimborne to Blandford road just below Bradbury Rings there is an avenue of trees and it is said that these were planted by a farmer and that there was one for everyday of the year, but in fact there are more than 365 and a lot of them have love pledges carved on them.