page_title: Littlebredy
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Littlebredy / History
caption_attribution_description: English: A wooden memorial in the churchyard of St Michael &amp; All Angels, Little Bredy, Dorset. The inscription reads: FREDERIC WALLIS DD 1853-1928 THIRD BISHOP OF WELLINGTON NZ FELLOW AND SOMETIME DEAN OF GONVILLE AND CAIUS COLL CAMB WHO WAS FILLED WITH THE SPIRIT OF POWER AND OF LOVE AND OF A SOUND MIND.
context_page_description: Littlebredy is a small village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset, situated approximately 6.5 miles west of the county town Dorchester. It is sited at the head of the valley of the small River Bride, surrounded by wooded chalk hills of the Dorset Downs. The parish contains the Valley of Stones National Nature Reserve and is in an area rich with evidence of early human occupation. In the 2011 census it had a population of 121.
context_section_description: The area around Littlebredy is rich with evidence of early human occupation, including stone circles, strip lynchets, tumuli (long and round barrows) and a probable hill fort. North and east of the village the density of barrows is as great as the area around Stonehenge. One mile north of the village and just outside the parish is a group of 44 Bronze Age round barrows of various sizes, known as Winterbourne Poor Lot Barrows or just Poor Lot. On a hill immediately south of the village are the earthworks of Old Warren (or Danes' Camp), which most likely was a univallate (single rampart) Iron Age hill fort. Old Warren may later have been used as a burh in the time of Alfred the Great, though it may have been not completed, or abandoned in favour of a site at what is now Bridport.
  Records from the 10th century refer to the area as 'Bridian' or 'Brydian' and in 1086 Littlebredy specifically was recorded in the Domesday Book as 'Litelbride'. The words 'Bride' and 'Bredy' derive from the Celtic for a torrential, gushing stream; the addition of 'Little' distinguishes the parish from the larger neighbouring parish of Long Bredy.
  Littlebredy was owned by Cerne Abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 16th century, when the Abbey sold its land to Philip Vanwilder. The estate subsequently passed to the Freke family of Iwerne Courtney and then Sir Robert Meller (or Mellor) of Winterborne Came, who built Bridehead House in the early 17th century. In 1730 the estate was bought by the Meech family who in 1797 sold it to wealthy banker Robert Williams from Hertfordshire.
  During the 19th century the Williams family—headed by four successive Roberts who all became members of parliament—made substantial changes to the estate. The architects Peter Frederick Robinson and then Benjamin Ferrey were employed. Bridehead House was extended and altered by Robinson in 1830–33, then extended further by Ferrey a few years later. The River Bride was dammed near its source to create a lake as part of landscaping around the house. Ferrey also designed new cottages to form an estate village and provided plans for restoring the parish church, including adding a spire to its 14th-century tower. Some Jacobean buildings in the village were also changed around this time, being reworked into a Gothic farmyard or stable block. Ferrey's plan for the church—which involved virtually rebuilding it—was implemented in 1847 under the supervision of the third Robert Williams' brother-in-law, Arthur Acland, who also had an architectural input.
  In the churchyard is a memorial to Frederic Wallis, Bishop of Wellington, New Zealand, who married into the Williams family. It is made from the wood of a tree sent specially from New Zealand.
caption: Frederic Wallis memorial in the churchyard (base not shown)
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