page_title: Abbotsbury
section_title: Ilchester Estate
hierarchical_section_title: Abbotsbury / Ilchester Estate
caption_attribution_description: English: Abbotsbury Swannery Feeding time!
context_page_description: Abbotsbury is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset. It is in the Dorset unitary authority area and is situated about 1 mile inland from the English Channel coast. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 481.
  The coastline within Abbotsbury parish includes a section of Chesil Beach, an 18-mile barrier beach which is part of the Jurassic Coast, a World Heritage Site.
  Abbotsbury is known for its swannery, subtropical gardens and surviving abbey buildings, including St Catherine's Chapel, a 14th-century pilgrimage chapel that stands on a hill between the village and the coast.
  Much of Abbotsbury, including Chesil Beach, the swannery and subtropical gardens, is owned by the Ilchester Estate, which owns 61 square kilometres of land in Dorset.
context_section_description: An estate of some 61 square kilometres (15,000 acres) in Dorset covering Chesil Beach and Abbotsbury is held by the Ilchester Estate, owned by Mrs Charlotte Townshend, the daughter of Viscount Galway, a descendant of the first Countess of Ilchester and owner of the Melbury Estate.
caption: Mute swans on the Fleet lagoon at Abbotsbury Swannery
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