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The village of Charmouth is a designated ‘Gateway’ to the Dorset World Heritage Site, a distinction based upon the unique Jurassic geological sequences exposed along the Dorset coast. Charmouth’s prominence in this respect is that it has direct access to the fossil rich strata that nearly two centuries ago figured so prominently in the birth of the   ‘new’ sciences of geology and palaeontology.

     The village is unique in that it was a planned medieval community dating to the late 13^th century. The boundaries were defined by the ‘Monk’s Wall’ to the north and formerly by an earthen bank at its southern limit. This containment was divided into burgage (tenure) plots that still form property boundaries to this day. Before the Reformation, the Manor of Charmouth was held by the Abbots of Forde Abbey. In 1564, Elizabeth 1, by a charter granted the Lordship of Charmouth to Robert and William Caldwell, Gentlemen.

     There is evidence of Neolithic and Bronze Age settlement in the area, but it was the later Iron Age people – the Durotriges - who left the greater mark with their impressive hill forts that can still be seen in our area. The most notable of these was Maiden Castle and Pilsdon Pen both of which were sacked by the future Roman emperor Vespasian, leading the his Second Augusta Legion in his campaign in the west in 43AD.

     In the 9^th Century tradition tells of two great confrontations on the banks of the River Cerne (Char) between Viking raiders and local forces led by King Egbert and later by his son King Aethelwulf of the West Saxons. On both occasions, after a great slaughter the Vikings withdrew. ‘Cernemunde’ - Charmouth - is recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086. Catherine of Aragon is believed to have stayed in the village in 1501 on her way to marry Prince Arthur, the elder brother of the future Henry V111. In 1651 Charles 11 sheltered here in his flight following his defeat at the Battle of Worcester.

 

 

 

 

     Jane Austen recorded her impression of the village:

Charmouth, with its high grounds and extensive sweeps of the country, and still more, its sweet retired bay, backed with dark cliffs, where fragments of low rock among the sands make it the happiest spot for watching the flow of the tide.

  

 

 

 

          Charmouth’s primary thoroughfare rises steeply from east to west; at the eastern end passing over two bridges of the river “Char”, from which the village takes its name. In the middle of one of these bridges is an iron plate giving notice that this is a county bridge and anyone injuring it would be guilty of a felony and liable to transportation for life. The beautiful Marshwood Vale is drained by the many streams that form the river Char which and enters the sea at Charmouth.

    Ascending the hill one will pass lime-rendered cottages, Regency villas and later Victorian residences. The village, being of an ancient linear development is interspersed by some modern structures and some even older being dated to the Late Medieval period. This unique architectural “evolution” with thirty-four Grade 11 Listed Buildings, contained as it is by its medieval wall, is deservedly, the designated Conservation Area of Charmouth.

      The parish church of St Andrews was built in 1836 on the site of an earlier 15^th Century church. There is some evidence of an even earlier structure, believed to have been of Saxon origin, that had been destroyed by “storm and tide.” Here, in “God’s Acre” is a tomb commemorating James Warden a Royal Naval lieutenant who, having fought nineteen battles and survived “gallant perils”, was shot dead in a duel on the morning of the 28^th April 1792.

         Another distinction of Charmouth is that the parish owns its own foreshore with all the rights from low to high tide. The land and the buildings had been the property of the Pass estate of Wootton Fitzpaine and were purchased by the Parish Council in 1937. Other smaller parcels of land, including Evans Cliff, were given as gifts to the     council by Mrs Evans formerly of Hammonds Mead in Charmouth. The largest of the buildings on the property had been built in the 1850s for the manufacture of cement. The venture failed and the Old Cement Factory, as the building is still known, fell into disrepair. It has recently gained far greater prominence. The ground floor now houses a café and retail units, including a fossil shop with a wide selection of fossils from the adjacent cliffs

         The upper floor houses one of the foremost geological and palaeotological interpretative centres in the country, the Charmouth Heritage Coast Centre. This exceptional resource has a permanent professional staff and has recently been extended to provide guidance and instruction for visitors and school parties in geology, fossiling and environmental studies. It is the gateway to World Heritage Site.