River Piddle
Encyclopedia
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...
river
River
A river is a natural watercourse, usually freshwater, flowing towards an ocean, a lake, a sea, or another river. In a few cases, a river simply flows into the ground or dries up completely before reaching another body of water. Small rivers may also be called by several other names, including...
which rises next to Alton Pancras
Alton Pancras
Alton Pancras is a small village in the West Dorset district of Dorset, England. It is sited at an altitude of 125 metres in the valley of the River Piddle, which has its source just north of the village. The surrounding chalk hills rise to between 230 and 260 metres...
church (Alton Pancras was originally named Awultune, a Saxon
Anglo-Saxons
Anglo-Saxon is a term used by historians to designate the Germanic tribes who invaded and settled the south and east of Great Britain beginning in the early 5th century AD, and the period from their creation of the English nation to the Norman conquest. The Anglo-Saxon Era denotes the period of...
name meaning the village at the source of a river) and flows south and then south-easterly more or less parallel with its bigger neighbour, the River Frome
River Frome, Dorset
The River Frome is a river in Dorset in the south of England. At 30 miles long it is the major chalkstream in southwest England. It is navigable upstream from Poole Harbour as far as the town of Wareham.-Geography:...
, to Wareham
Wareham, Dorset
Wareham is an historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles southwest of Poole.-Situation and geography:...
, where they both enter Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour
Poole Harbour is a large natural harbour in Dorset, southern England, with the town of Poole on its shores. The harbour is a drowned valley formed at the end of the last ice age and is the estuary of several rivers, the largest being the Frome. The harbour has a long history of human settlement...
via Wareham Channel.
Many of the villages it passes through are named after it: Puddletown
Puddletown
Puddletown is a village in Dorset, England, 5 miles east of Dorchester in the River Piddle valley. The village has a population of 1,177 , of which 30.3% are retired....
, Tolpuddle
Tolpuddle
Tolpuddle is a small village in the southern English county of Dorset, situated in the Piddle valley, eight miles east of Dorchester and 12 miles west of Poole. The village has a population of 331 ....
, Piddlehinton
Piddlehinton
Piddlehinton is a village in west Dorset, England situated in the Piddle valley five miles north of Dorchester. The village has a population of around 600 .Piddlehinton formerly constituted a liberty containing only the parish itself....
, Piddletrenthide
Piddletrenthide
Piddletrenthide is a village in west Dorset, England, situated in the Piddle valley on the dip slope of the Dorset Downs, eight miles north of Dorchester. The village has a population of 691...
, Affpuddle
Affpuddle
Affpuddle is a small village and civil parish in the Purbeck district of Dorset in South West England, east of Dorchester. The local travel links are from the village to Moreton railway station and to Bournemouth International Airport. Part of the village street is the B3390, which divides the...
, Briantspuddle
Briantspuddle
Briantspuddle is a village in Dorset, England situated within the Piddle Valley near to the villages of Affpuddle, Tolpuddle and Puddletown and approximately eight miles east of the county town of Dorchester. The village takes its name from Brian de Turberville, who was lord of the manor during...
, Turnerspuddle
Turners Puddle
Turners Puddle is a hamlet in Dorset, England, situated on the River Piddle in the Purbeck district, seven miles north west of Wareham. The village has a population of 60 .-External links:*...
. All but two of those names now contain "puddle" rather than "piddle"; a local tradition tells that the villages were renamed to avoid embarrassment before a visit by Queen Victoria. However, there is no firm evidence of this and Puddletown was certainly still called Piddletown into the 1950s.
See also
- Rivers of the United Kingdom
- Piddle Brook