Tarrant Crawford Church and font (Photo submitted by Ann McCallum, Logan Queensland,Australia)

Rushton which is one of the eight villages. stole the limelight when it became the site of a wartime airfield that served a major role in the Second World War and later it was the base for experiments carried by Sir Alan Cobham and is Flight Refuelling Company, which showed its versatility during the Falklands war in 1982. Lancaster bombers and Meteor jets broke the peace and quiet of the Stour valley during these experiments and the landowners from Crichel, the Martens, eventually got the land returned to agriculture, and the area now has peace and quiet.

The ancient church which is in a cross shape dates back to the 12th century.

St Mary's Church Tarrant Rushton

Gunville  sits at the source of the river and the entrance to Eastbury Hall seems to dominate the mansion. Geogre Bubb Dodington who was a dandy about 200 years ago, and became Lord Melcombe,  was the builder of the mansion and designed it on the same lines as Blenheim Palace. He had inherited a fortune and £140,000 was spent on the building of the mansion, but when he died it was found it was too expensive to maintain so was demolished.

Inside the church is a memorial to Thomas Wedgwood who was the son of the famous Josiah who had died in the same year as the Battle of Trafalgar and he contributed to the early days of photography and built a basic camera. He was later denied a part in this popular art and died before a way of fixing the images to make them permanent  was found.

Tarrant Hinton, lies downstream and is on the main Salisbury to Blandford road, its church is hidden at the bottom of a lane and during World War I men of the Naval Division did their training here before embarking for the fight at Gallipoli.

Monkton and Launceston can be found where the lanes seem to twist and turned and are separated by a bridge with three arches and a ford. Monkton is a village with a great community spirit and there are some love thatched cottages with wishing wells in some of the gardens, and the sign on the village shop was painted in Olde English. The village pub has a memorial outside to four sons of the Launceston and Monkton families who laid down their lives fighting in the Great War.

Rawston, is now mostly  a farmstead, which is situated by a small waterfall and  has a  miniature water wheel, 18 ins. across which is housed in a little brick building 6 ft. square. The increase in traffic has led to the village being known to have 'the fastest High Street in the West', but has generally remained unchanged for around a century, There are shops at the crossroads and on another corner is the school building with the inn named True Lovers Knot which commemorates  a double knot which is the lovers symbol.

William de Cahagnes was the ruler in the Tarrant valley during the time of the Saxons and the village got its name from the old Tarent Kahaines.

Crawford is the last village along the river and has a  nine-arched bridge, the name derives from the Saxon Crow Ford which is apt as just across the river is Spetisbury which got its name from the woodpecker.

Keyneston Tarrant Keyneston is one of the eight small villages which lie in
the valley of the River Tarrant, some 10 miles in length, a tributary of the Dorset River Stour. The name Tarrant is of Celtic origin meaning “liable to flood” and the river still lives up to this name during a wet season.

All Saints Church, Tarrant Keyneston

The first reference to a hamlet is, as usual, in the Domesday Book (1086) where the village is shown as Tarent Kaineston. The unusual second name is derived from Ralph de Caineto, who came over to England from France with William the Conqueror. Ralph’s elder son, another Ralph, was given the Manor of Tarrent through his wife. Ralph’s family is the same Keynes family who gave their name to Coombe Keynes, Dorset; Horsted Keynes, Sussex; Milton Keynes, Bucks, and Somerford Keynes, Wilts. In the records consulted, there is much variance in the spelling of the second name from those mentioned above to Kaynes and Keines. The variance in spelling was due mainly to the fact that pre 1500 very few written accounts are found. Most records were kept and written by the ecclesiastical authorities and together with no formal English grammar or spelling - Latin being the language of the church - many variations occur.

Hutchins’ History of Dorset (1870) quotes from an old record that Ralph de Kahaynes settled himself at Tarent, after his marriage, and founded a Nunnery there. The Kaynes mansion is thought to have been situated a short distance to the west of the present church, with the Nunnery nearby.

William de Kahaynes, Ralph’s son, is cited as giving the Nunnery: “the croft before the church of All Saints, the garden near the church, also a tythe of bread, except the King’s bread, made in his house, wherever he was in any of his demesnes, also tythe of salt pork, mutton and beef killed in his house throughout the year and against Christmas a barrel of his best ale and another of his second best or malt to make so much every year for ever.”

There is also evidence of an Ankerhold, where a hermit would enclose him or herself, dedicating his life to God, but the last traces were destroyed at the restoration of 1853. The Kahaynes Nunnery seems to have been the forerunner of the big and important Cistercian Abbey on the other side of the River Tarrant at Tarrant Crawford, 0.5 mile away, founded about 1223 by Bishop Poore, the builder of the new Salisbury Cathedral.

The list of Rectors of Keyneston begins in 1317, although there is a record of a previous incumbent in 1286. This supports evidence that there was a church on this site from a much earlier time. From 1317 up to the Dissolution of the Monasteries and Nunneries (1536) the patrons of the living of Keyneston were the Abbesses of Tarent (Crawford Abbey). At the Dissolution the patronage passed to the Lords of the Manor and other patrons until 1953 when the advowson was transferred to the Bishops of Salisbury. The parishes of Keyneston and Crawford were united in 1928, with Keyneston becoming the parish church and Crawford a chapel. In 1988 Crawford passed into the control of The Churches Conservation Trust.