Frampton

Frampton is a village in the Frome valley among the chalk hills of the Dorset Downs, about 5 miles (8 km) north-west of Dorchester. The parish had 510 residents at the 2021 census. The A356 and the Heart of Wessex railway line run through it, and the nearest station is at Maiden Newton, approximately 2.5 miles away.

Robert Browne built Frampton Court in 1704, and the house was pulled down in 1935. Around 1840 its owner demolished cottages on the south side of the main street and replaced them with trees, to improve the view from the Court.

Nunnery Mead, a 6 hectare (15 acre) reserve managed by the Dorset Wildlife Trust, lies beside the River Frome near the village. Most of the site is a former water meadow beside the Frome, and it attracts otters, kingfishers and dippers. A Roman villa found here in 1796 was thought to have been destroyed in the mid-19th century, until Bournemouth University archaeologists rediscovered well-preserved walls and areas of mosaic in 2019. The villa’s mosaics include a Chi-Rho monogram, one of the earliest Christian symbols known in Britain. The reserve has no car park: visitors leave the car on the roadside in the village and walk or cycle in along a bridleway.

Charlton Down, a new village that developed on the site of the old Dorset County Asylum, is 4 miles north of Dorchester.