Сидлинг Сент-Николас: Деревня в Дорсете, Англия

Village in Dorset, England

Sydling St Nicholas is a village and civil parish in Dorset within southwest England. The parish is northwest of the county town Dorchester and covers most of the valley of the small Sydling Water in the chalk hills of the Dorset Downs. The parish has an area of and includes the hamlet of Up Sydling in the north. Sydling St Nicholas village was recorded in the 11th century Domesday Book, though evidence of much earlier human occupation has been found in the surrounding area. Over the last thousand years the village has been owned by Milton Abbey, Sir Francis Walsingham and Winchester College. The whole of Sydling St Nicholas parish lies within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. In addition, parts of the parish lie within the Hog Cliff National Nature Reserve and the Cerne and Sydling Downs Special Area of Conservation. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 414. and refer to the hills around the village. In the 10th century the village was recorded as Sidelyng and in the Domesday Book of 1086 it was Sidelince. The second part of the name comes from the dedicated saint of the parish church. though in pre Roman times human habitation was confined to the hilltops. about 0.75 miles (1.25 km) to the south east of the current village. Remains of Celtic field systems have been found in the north and west of the parish. Saxon settlers arrived in the valley in the 7th or 8th century; In 933 AD land was given to the monks at Milton Abbey, who provided the village with a priest. In subsequent centuries the village has been owned by Sir Francis Walsingham, Secretary of State to Queen Elizabeth, and by Winchester College. Sir John Smith, 1st Baronet, lived in Sydling St Nicholas and the Smith family remained a leading local family through the 18th and 19th centuries, with a number of memorials in the parish church. Sydling St Nicholas once constituted a liberty, containing only the parish itself.

Sydling St Nicholas is sited in the valley of Sydling Water, a tributary of the River Frome. The valley is one of several roughly parallel valleys which cut into the dip slope of the Dorset Downs, a line of chalk hills that span the centre of the county. The village lies at an altitude of and the surrounding chalk hills rise to at Gore Hill to the north. The hills and all of the civil parish lie within the Dorset Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty (AONB). In the south of the parish and within the Cerne and Sydling Downs Special Area of Conservation are two parts of the three part Hog Cliff National Nature Reserve (the third part lies within the neighbouring parish of Maiden Newton). Measured directly, Sydling St Nicholas village is 6.5 mile (10 km) NW of Dorchester, 11 mile (18 km) ENE of Bridport and 11.5 mile (19 km) SSE of Yeovil. The A37 Dorchester Yeovil main road runs along the top of the hills about 1 mile (2 km) to the west of the village.

Sydling Water is a chalk stream that rises just to the north of Sydling St Nicholas in the hamlet of Up Sydling. The stream divides upon entering the village, and many cottages are reached across small bridges. The stream used to flow along the High Street in an open course, In 1905 Sir Frederick Treves described the village as "the most charming in the district". The south aisle has settled since construction, so the south wall is buttressed and has only a small door. The church is a Grade I listed building. Next to the church are Court House and Court Farm. Court House is the village manor house and was the venue for meetings of the local Court leet. Court Farm has a large Elizabethan tithe barn which overlooks the churchyard; it was built in 1590 and constructed from flint, with stone buttresses and oak roof beams. In his 18th century History and Antiquities of the County of Dorset, John Hutchins stated that one of the beams in the barn was inscribed with 'L. V. W. 1590', the initials being those of Lady Ursula Walsingham,