Minterne Magna

A couple of miles north of the Cerne Giant, Minterne Magna is notable for its parish church, crowded with memorials to Napiers, Churchills and Digbys, the families who once owned the great house here and most of the Minterne valley. The mansion itself, rebuilt in the Arts & Crafts style around 1900 is not open to the public but its splendid Minterne Gardens are. The gardens are laid out in a horseshoe below the house and landscaped in the 18th century style of Capability Brown. They contain an important collection of Himalayan rhododendrons and azaleas, along with cherries, maples and many other fine and rare trees. The gardens are open daily from March to early November.  On Batcombe Hill, to the west of Minterne Magna, stands a stone pillar known as the Cross and Hand, thought to date from the 7th century. Its purpose is unknown, but in Tess of the d’Urbevilles Hardy relates the local legend that the pillar marks the grave of a criminal who was tortured and hanged there, and whose mournful ghost appears beside the column from time to time.