Starting from the Greyhound Inn.

Distance 1 mile. Allow 1 hour

The walk is wheelchair accessible. There are benches near Ham Farm, on the Green, and by the Old School and the Cross Tree

From the Greyhound Inn

1, Turn right along Syding High Street, and continue for 250 metres, past Upper Mill on your right, and alongside the raised section of river which used to feed the Mill Race. On your left is College House, once a farmhouse, but renamed in the 20th century, for Winchester College, who owned Sydling for 450 years from the dissolution of the monasteries. Before this, in medieval times, Sydling was a manor of Milton Abbey. Hope Chapel, ahead of you, was a non-conformist chapel, built in 1834. The last service here was held in 1969. It is now a private house.

2, Turn right over the bridge and immediately right again down Back Lane. Pound House, on the left is built near the site of the old village pound, the remains of which are in the garden of Pound Cottage next door. Animals that had strayed or trespassed were impounded and kept until their owners paid a fine. There was also a larger pound elsewhere. Sometimes owners took the law into their own hands. For example, from a manorial court of 1460, “Nicholas Fote broke the lord’s pound by trespassing on the lord’s private land in that place without permission and seized and took away 100 sheep impounded there”.  

Ham Cottage on the left was once 5 cottages for farm workers . Further ahead is Ham Farmhouse. This was the final property in Sydling to be sold by Winchester College in 2008, on the death of the last tenant farmer, Charlie Barter. The mill race, opposite, tumbles towards the site of Upper Mill. There was a corn mill here from medieval times, until the 1950s. There was a Lower Mill just south of the village at Huish, and City farm and Magiston Farm once had their own mills too.

3, Cross the footbridge onto Waterside Lane, the path along the stream, past a pair of cottages once known as the Tin Tabernacle on the left. Older villagers remember their parents talking of prayer meetings being held here, with the worshippers’ horses hitched outside. Continue past Kiddles, with a date of 1600, perhaps one of the oldest cottages in the village, and named after the family who lived there. In front of it there are steps down to the river, where milk churns were put to cool, opposite the garden gate which led to the dairy behind the house.

4, Walk over the bridge and continue by the side of the stream to East Street. Turn left. The house immediately on your left was the masters house for the village school.

5, The last house on the left at the end of East Street is Hit or Miss, so called since it was an inn in the 19th century. The origins of the name are obscure, but there are several theories, the most likely being that when the huntsmen came down the hill after a day’s hunting, they would say to each other “shall we hit or miss it today lads?” Beyond this, old maps showed the “poor houses known as the city”. These no longer exist, but what is now The Green was occupied by the farmyard and buildings of City Farm, whose name probably derives from them.

6, Retrace your steps down East Street. After the Green, City Farmhouse is on your left. Parts of the house are thought to date back to the 1400s.

Further down, on the right, opposite the village hall, are Rocks Farmhouse, with adjoining Lavender Cottage, plus Rocks Barn and the Stock Barn, all once barns and outbuildings of the farm, whose fields were down the valley.

7, Straight ahead over the crossroads is the Cross Tree, a chestnut, planted in 1900, to replace an old elm, which stood over the village stocks (now gone). And also the Candlestick, all that remains of a 15th century Hamstone cross.

8, Behind these are two lovely old houses, the Vicarage, thought to date back to 1640 or earlier, and Greystones, the Old Bakery, 1733.

10, The Church deserves a visit. The present building is thought to date from around 1430, though there was a church on the site for at least 500 years before this. There are leaflets inside with details of its history.

The church tower contains an Elizabethan clock, constructed in 1593. The clock is believed to have been cast locally by a blacksmith.  It's the second oldest clock of its kind in the country.  The clock is faceless however it strikes the hour. The clock used to be wound manually, at task performed at 8am and Noon, when weights were raised.  This task in now performed by electric motors however the clock still requires human input; adjustments need to be made to compensate for changing temperatures and for British Summer time.. 

As the only indication of time is via the clock chiming, there is mechanical link between the clock and the tenor bell. The clock chiming mechanism pulls a hammer and then drops it onto the side of the bell. 

During times when the bells are being rung from the ringing chamber on the ground floor a cable must be pulled to pull the hammer away from the bell.

There are five bells in the church tower. Their weights range from 7.5 cwt for the treble to 19 cwt for the tenor bell.

More information regarding Sydling church including the bells can be found on the village website.  

11. As you leave the church, turn left into the graveyard. On your right there are views of Sydling Court with its Victorian Gothic front over the older Georgian building, and its 18C dovecote and the fascinating old yew hedge around the garden. Stroll round the churchyard, there are lovely views of the surrounding hills

The church gargoyles featured in the 1967 film of Far from the Madding Crowd, and the church and graveyard in the 2015 version of the same. There is a millstone on the grave of the last miller of Sydling. The South East corner of the graveyard overlooks the Tithe Barn. This magnificent building dates from the 16C, and one of the beams bears the carved initials UW, for Ursula Walsingham, daughter of Sir Francis Walsingham, secretary of state to Elizabeth 1st   and widow of Philip Sydney, who lived at Sydling Court

12, Walk back down Church Lane towards the village hall, then turn left up Sydling High Street. The first building on the right was the village school.

13, On your left beyond the old Bakery is, East House, an imposing Georgian House. It was built in 1787, on the site of a much older mansion house, for William Devenish, whose family had been in Sydling for centuries, and whose wealth came partly from their Weymouth brewery.

14, Attached to 11 High Street is the single storied Old Smithy, where Dick Newman and his father and grandfather were blacksmiths, for over a century between them. The porch on the cottage reads Rogers Blacksmith” in the metalwork, and was forged, in the mid 19th century by an earlier smith, William Rogers.

The standpipe outside the cottage was the first piped water provided to the village in 1932.

15, Brewery House, opposite, was a brewery, run by other Newman brothers. It was powered by a water wheel. It ceased to operate about the time of the First World War, after two of the brothers were killed by the same horse.

16, Further up, on the left is a cherry tree, planted by the village in 1977 for the silver Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth 2nd. Next on the left, number 15 was once the Police House, and opposite is Sydling’s Methodist Chapel, dating from 1866. Number 17 was once Shorto’s shop and telegraph office.

17, Webbers, on the left, once again is named after the family who lived here for several hundred years. It was probably a single storey medieval hall house with a central chimney, the upper story being added in the late 1600s, when the 2 chimneys were put at the ends of the building.

18, Across the road was Sherry’s store and what was once the only petrol pump between Dorchester and Yeovil.

19, Further along is an archway that led to a carpenter’s workshop. In the 19C there were many trades in the village, as well as agricultural labourers: cobblers, dressmakers, laundresses, cabinetmakers, brewers, smiths, thatchers, carters

20, And so we return to the Greyhound Inn, where beer has been served for over 400 years, and a warm welcome awaits.

 

We hope you have enjoyed your walk.

More detailed histories of some of the houses and other buildings in Sydling will be added to the website as we learn more about them. Please check our House Histories page for any that interest you.