| Whitcombe |
| Whitcombe Farm and its cottages are old
farm workers cottages that have been refurbished situated in this small
hamlet which lies 2 miles south east of Dorchester and has Saxon
origins, it is also recorded in the Domesday Survey. In a dip lies the
tiny Norman church whose dedication is unknown and this has been
restored in memory of William Barnes for it was here in Whitcombe that
the Dorset Dialect poet William Barnes preached his very first sermon
when he became rector or Winterborne Came in 1885, and he also preached
his last here as well as he died here at the age of 82 years in 1886. He was born at Bagber in 1801 and was educated locally and worked as a solicitors clerk up until 1823 when he became a schoolmaster. He married Julia Miles in 1827 and when she died in 1852 it shook him deeply and many of his poems show his love for her.
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