The former town Milton (or Middleton) in Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

 was cleared by the local landowner, Joseph Damer

Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester

Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester was a wealthy landowner particularly associated with the reshaping of Milton Abbey and the creation of the village of Milton Abbas in Dorset, south-west England....

, in the 1770s. This was a result of a fashion amongst English landowners to improve the amenity of their homes by converting surrounding farmland into open parkland. Where buildings were deemed to spoil the view, they were removed, including villages and towns, as in the case of Milton.

Damer's former residence, Milton Abbey

Milton Abbey

Milton Abbey School is a British independent school in the Dorset countryside. It has 227 pupils in six boarding Houses, called Athelstan, Bancks, Damer, Hambro, Middleton and Tregonwell. Founded in 1954, it welcomes boys from 13 to 16 years and is coeducational in the sixth form.The school has a...

 is now occupied by Milton Abbey School.

History

A church, dedicated to St Sampson

Samson of Dol

Saint Samson of Dol was a Christian religious figure who is counted among the seven founder saints of Brittany. Born in southern Wales, he died in Dol-de-Bretagne, a small town in north Brittany.-Life:...

, was founded at Milton in the reign of King Athelstan (who also granted an annual fair). It was said to be a gesture of atonement

Atonement

Atonement is a doctrine that describes how human beings can be reconciled to God. In Christian theology the atonement refers to the forgiving or pardoning of sin through the death of Jesus Christ by crucifixion, which made possible the reconciliation between God and creation...

 for the death of the King's brother, Edwin, in 933 AD and it was endowed with relic

Relic

In religion, a relic is a part of the body of a saint or a venerated person, or else another type of ancient religious object, carefully preserved for purposes of veneration or as a tangible memorial...

s. In 964, the church was handed over to the Benedictine

Benedictine

Benedictine refers to the spirituality and consecrated life in accordance with the Rule of St Benedict, written by Benedict of Nursia in the sixth century for the cenobitic communities he founded in central Italy. The most notable of these is Monte Cassino, the first monastery founded by Benedict...

s and a monastery was established there until 11 March 1539, during the general Dissolution of the Monasteries

Dissolution of the Monasteries

The Dissolution of the Monasteries, sometimes referred to as the Suppression of the Monasteries, was the set of administrative and legal processes between 1536 and 1541 by which Henry VIII disbanded monasteries, priories, convents and friaries in England, Wales and Ireland; appropriated their...

 by Henry VIII

Henry VIII of England

Henry VIII was King of England from 21 April 1509 until his death. He was Lord, and later King, of Ireland, as well as continuing the nominal claim by the English monarchs to the Kingdom of France...

. Henry subsequently sold the estate to John Tregonwell

John Tregonwell

Sir John Tregonwell was an English jurist, a principal agent of Henry VIII and Thomas Cromwell in the Dissolution of the Monasteries.-Life:...

 in February, 1540.

After several changes of ownership, the estate, including the town, the former monastery and its church were acquired in 1752 by Joseph Damer. Milton was a market town

Market town

Market town or market right is a legal term, originating in the medieval period, for a European settlement that has the right to host markets, distinguishing it from a village and city...

 with almshouse

Almshouse

Almshouses are charitable housing provided to enable people to live in a particular community...

s, a grammar school

Grammar school

A grammar school is one of several different types of school in the history of education in the United Kingdom and some other English-speaking countries, originally a school teaching classical languages but more recently an academically-oriented secondary school.The original purpose of mediaeval...

, prosperous traders and inn

INN

InterNetNews is a Usenet news server package, originally released by Rich Salz in 1991, and presented at the Summer 1992 USENIX conference in San Antonio, Texas...

s. Nonetheless, having persuaded, by what means is not always clear, the inhabitants to vacate (many were rehoused at the nearby new settlement of Milton Abbas

Milton Abbas

Milton Abbas is a village in Dorset in the south-west of England, approximately seven miles south-west of the market town of Blandford Forum and 11 miles north-east of Dorchester. The village has a population of 766...

), Damer had the entire town demolished. This was substantially complete by 1776. A remaining tenant, William Harrison, successfully resisted the clearance and Damer had to wait for his death.

Institutions such as the almshouses were moved to Milton Abbas, as were materials from demolished buildings, but the grammar school survived until 1785 when an Act of Parliament

Act of Parliament

An Act of Parliament is a statute enacted as primary legislation by a national or sub-national parliament. In the Republic of Ireland the term Act of the Oireachtas is used, and in the United States the term Act of Congress is used.In Commonwealth countries, the term is used both in a narrow...

 sponsored by Damer obliged the school to move to Blandford Forum.