Sutton Poyntz

Sutton Poyntz is a small village in an enclosed valley beneath the Osmington White Horse. It forms a northern extension of the larger village of Preston, and the White Horse above it was cut in 1808 to show King George III (see Osmington).

A series of springs below the chalk of the Ridgeway feed the stream through the village. The duck pond was originally dug as the mill race for Sutton Mill, and the northern branch of the river once worked two corn mills. The source of the Preston River, Spring Bottom, is about half a mile north of the village.

In 1855 the Weymouth Waterworks Company bought Upper Mill, a water-powered grist mill, and the springs behind it, and the following year engineer Thomas Hawksley turned the site into a pumping station to supply Weymouth with water. After the explosion on Brunel’s SS Great Eastern in 1859, the company bought the damaged ship’s funnel and used it in the filtration system. Thomas Hardy based the mill and village of Overcombe in The Trumpet-Major on Upper Mill and Sutton Poyntz.

The stream, which becomes the River Jordan, runs south through Preston and reaches the sea at Bowleaze Cove, a small sand and shingle beach on the Jurassic Coast. For shops, a harbour and a larger beach, Weymouth is the nearest town.