Puddletown is a village in Dorset, England, situated about miles (7 km) northeast of the county town Dorchester. Through it flows River Piddle
Through it flows the River Piddle, from which it derives its name. It was used known as Piddletown, but this fell out of favour, probably because of the alternative meaning of the word "piddle". The name Puddletown rather than Piddletown was officially sanctioned in the late 1950s. Puddletown's parish church has significant architectural interest, especially its furnishings and monuments. It has a 12th-century font and well-preserved woodwork, including 17th-century box pews. Thomas Hardy took an interest in the church and the village, providing the inspiration for the fictional settlement of Weatherbury in his novel Far from the Madding Crowd; Weatherbury Farm, home of principal character Bathsheba Everdene, is based on a manor house within the parish. Thus Puddletown means 'farmstead on the River Piddle'. deriving from the Old English pidele, a river-name meaning fen or marsh, and tūn, meaning Both piddle and puddle have been used in Puddletown's name over the years. In the Domesday Book of 1086 it was recorded as Pitretone, and later was Pideleton. John Speed used Puddletown for his county map of 1610, in 1848 Samuel Lewis used Piddletown ,in 1906 Sir Frederick Treves used Puddletown describing it as "the Town on the River Puddle". In 1946 Piddletown was the name used on the voters lists. One explanation for the preference of using Puddletown over Piddletown is that Major-General Charles William Thompson, who lived at what was Ilsington Lodge after returning from the Great War, pushed through the puddle variant because piddle had a particular meaning in army circles. The broadcaster and writer Ralph Wightman (1901–71), a native of the Piddle Valley and one-time Puddletown resident, believed it was due to Victorian "refinement", as he recalled that in his youth elderly aunts referred to Piddletrenthide as just "Trenthide". The use of Puddletown rather than Piddletown was officially preserved in the late 1950s,
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Location: Puddletown, Dorchester, UK
Photo credit: © Philip Chapman / Alamy / Afripics
License: Royalty Free
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Keywords: bathsheba, crowd, dorset, england, everdene, farmstead, fen, hardy, house, houses, madding, manor, marsh, piddle, piddletown, pidele, pideleton, pitretone, puddle, puddletown, river, settlement, terrace, thomas, village, weatherbury, west, ū
