Mappowder

---

title: "Mappowder" type: doc version: 1 created: 2026-02-28 author: "Wikipedia contributors" status: active scope: public tags: ["villages-in-dorset"] description: "Village and civil parish in Dorset, England" topic_path: "general/villages-in-dorset" source: "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mappowder" license: "CC BY-SA 4.0" wikipedia_page_id: 0 wikipedia_revision_id: 0

::summary Village and civil parish in Dorset, England ::

::data[format=table title="Infobox UK place"]

Field	Value
country	England
static_image_name	Mappowder Church - geograph.org.uk - 367095.jpg
static_image_caption	Parish church of St Peter and St Paul
official_name	Mappowder
coordinates
map_type	Dorset
population	166
unitary_england	Dorset
lieutenancy_england	Dorset
post_town	Sturminster Newton
postcode_area	DT
postcode_district	DT10
constituency_westminster	North Dorset
region	South West England
os_grid_reference	ST735061
::

|country = England |static_image_name = Mappowder Church - geograph.org.uk - 367095.jpg |static_image_caption = Parish church of St Peter and St Paul |official_name = Mappowder |coordinates = |map_type = Dorset |population = 166 | unitary_england= Dorset | lieutenancy_england= Dorset |post_town = Sturminster Newton |postcode_area = DT |postcode_district = DT10 |constituency_westminster = North Dorset |region = South West England |os_grid_reference = ST735061 Mappowder is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. The parish lies approximately 9 mi southeast of the town of Sherborne and covers about 1900 acre at an elevation of 75 to. It is sited on Corallian limestone soil at the southern edge of the Blackmore Vale, close to the northern scarp face of the Dorset Downs. In the 2011 census the parish had 71 dwellings, 69 households and a population of 166.

The village name comes from mapuldor, Old English for 'maple tree'. In 1086 in the Domesday Book Mappowder was recorded as Mapledre and appears in four entries; it was in Buckland Newton Hundred, had 33.3 households and a total taxable value of 8.3 geld units.

The church, dedicated to St Peter & St Paul, is Perpendicular and was built in the late 15th and 16th centuries. However, it includes features remaining from an earlier 12th-century church. The chancel was extended in 1868 by the Wingfield Digby family of Sherborne Castle, who owned the village in Victorian times.

Mappowder was once the home of the Coker family, who built a large mansion here in 1654, although this was pulled down in the mid-eighteenth century. The building which occupies the site now, Mappowder Court, is mostly of mid-eighteenth-century origin, with some earlier remnants. The stone gateposts at the entrance remain from the original Coker manor; these are topped by carved human heads which in 1905 Sir Frederick Treves described as "Blackamoors" these being "those indefinite natives of the tropics having been used for the crest of the Coker family." Mappowder Court is listed by English Heritage as Grade II*,

Novelist and short story writer Theodore Francis Powys lived in Mappowder for the last 13 years of his life; he died and was buried here in 1953.

Notes

References

• Gant, Roland (1980). Dorset Villages. Robert Hale Ltd.

References

1. (2014). "'Mappowder', in An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 3, Central (London, 1970), pp. 145-148". University of London.
2. Ordnance Survey 1:25,000 Pathfinder Series, sheet 1299 (ST60/70) Cerne Abbas & Hazelbury Bryan, published 1986, {{ISBN. 0-319-21299-8
3. Wightman, Ralph. (1983). "Portrait of Dorset". Robert Hale Ltd.
4. (30 January 2013). "Area: Mappowder (Parish). Dwellings, Household Spaces and Accommodation Type, 2011 (KS401EW)". Office for National Statistics.
5. "Neighbourhood Statistics. Area: Mappowder (Parish). Key figures for 2011 Census: Key Statistics". Office for National Statistics.
6. Gant, p73
7. "Place: Mappowder". Open Domesday.
8. "Dorset H–R". domesdaybook.co.uk.
9. Treves, Sir F., ''Highways and Byways in Dorset'', Macmillan, 1905, p331
10. Gant, p74
11. "Mappowder Court, Mappowder". britishlistedbuildings.co.uk.
12. "COKER, Henry (c.1528-95), of Mappowder, Dorset". Crown copyright and The History of Parliament Trust.
13. "Gate Piers Approximately 10 Metres East of Mappowder Court Together with Walls and Piers to North an, Mappowder". britishlistedbuildings.co.uk.

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