Milton Abbas

This picture postcard village of thatched cottages was created in the 1770s by Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester. The earl lived in the converted former abbey from which the village takes its name but he decided to demolish the medieval buildings, and build a more stately mansion surrounded by grounds landscaped by ‘Capability’ Brown. The earl’s ambitious plans required that the small town that had grown up around the abbey would have to go, so more than 100 houses, 4 pubs, a brewery and a school were razed to the ground. The residents were moved more than a mile away to the present village for which Brown had made the preliminary plans. The earl’s new mansion is now a private school and the only part of the abbey that survived is the Abbey Church which contains some wonderful Pugin glass and an extraordinary tomb to the earl and his wife Caroline designed by Robert Adam. Exquisitely carved by Agostino Carlini, the monument shows the earl propped up on one elbow gazing out across his beautiful wife.