Tyneham Deserted Village |
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Tyneham is a small village nestling in the valley below Whiteway Hill in south Dorset, England, near Lulworth on the Isle of Purbeck. Tyneham lies 6 miles south west of Corfe Castle and 7 miles from Wareham. The village of Tyneham is situated near Worbarrow Bay on the Jurassic Coast. Tyneham is mentioned in the Domesday Book as Tigeham, meaning "goat enclosure". The village, and 7,500 acres of surrounding heathland and chalk downland around the Purbeck Hills, were commandeered by the War Office (now Ministry of Defence) for use as firing ranges for training troops just before Christmas on December 17th 1943. It was once described as "one of the most beautifully situated villages in the country" and comprised an Elizabethan manor house, a handful of greystone cottages, a church and a school hidden among the trees and a distant view of the sea between wide areas of open grassland and the towering Purbeck hills. St Mary's is a small church built of Limestone rubble dating from the 13th Century, the South tracept was rebuilt in the mid 19th century by the Rev. William Bond, the church contains memorials to the Bond family of Tyneham House. After the military took over the church was neglected and some fittings were moved, the bells and organ were moved to Steeple church and the Jacobean pulpit to Lulworth Camp. In the 1980s the village of Tyneham was used for the filming of Comrades, which tells the story of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. The church was fitted with a fibreglass tower and the village's Post Office Row was fronted with fibreglass cottages. Tyneham parish also includes the ruined Hamlets of Povington, Egliston & Worbarrow, cleared at the same time as Tyneham itself. |
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