Today last minute we decided to go for a walk to West Parley, one of the oldest local areas it is adjacent to the Iron age hill fort down the road at dudsbury.

I was not quite sure what we were going to find as I have never been there before and only heard about it recently from my Mum who had decided to go for a wander herself .

I am so glad we went and what we discovered.

We found the little footpath sitting unassumingly off of New Road and then turned right on to Church Lane.  

On this short little walk we came across some lovely houses, renovations to old buildings and barn conversions.  Taken by surprise by the sudden crow of a rooster notified us we were by a farm, looking through the foliage on the side of the lane I was greeted by the sight of numerous Alpaca’s looking back at me!  That was the last thing we expected to stumble across on our walk today.  

On the other side of the road we came across a beautiful white stallion, who came over to see us.  

Amazing to see such life and then abandoned buildings, which some may dislike but I actually love looking at abandoned places, they can often be much more telling of what a place was once like than modernised and refurbished buildings.

The beautiful gated building that is the Old Rectory is especially beautiful. With its old stone lions standing guard. Even though this building looks abandoned and unused, it recently sold for £1.2million and boasts its own swimming pool in the garden and beautiful large landscaped gardens.

It was a lovely but short walk to the end of the road, but as always takes a bit longer because there was lots of animals, buildings and things to see.

West Parley is a very old part of Bournemouth, in fact it existed long long before Bournemouth ever did. Named from the Saxon terms for Pair tree field. West Parley appears in the Domesday book with 60 inhabitants and unfortunately also listed some slaves living in the village.

At the end of the road we found All Saints Church, one of the oldest parts of West Parley.

It is believed a church has stood in this spot since saxon times.  The current building is from the 12th Century using material from the prior building.

A beautiful humbling walk around the graveyard. I always like to try and find the oldest gravestones, here ones from the 1600’s seem to be the oldest still readable. There are some beautiful memorials but the graves of the young are still haunting and heart breaking.

However, there are two very interesting stories that are to be included for a bit of dark tourism purposes.

The Sundial, Murder and and execution!

As you walk in there is a sundial between some yew trees, it is atop a wooden post that was once part of the old Gallows used across at East Parley.

In 1803 William Harbin a local Farmer in the village was murdered by his son and his sons friend John, who was supposedly persuaded to do so by his mother before William had a chance to changed his will. 

The son and his friend were tried and convicted in Winchester and bought back to Parley for execution.  The pair were hung from the Gallows in Chains and left to hang and rot to deter others,

The Mother went insane and proceeded to spend all hours of the days scaring away birds and trying to feed the bodies by throwing potatoes into their mouths.

Later the owner of the land, fed up with tourists coming to see the gallows, cut it down and gave part of the post to the rector of West Parley.

He set it up where it still stands today and placed a sun dial on the top.  Because of its history it is said the sundial never gives the right time,  but then that maybe because it has trees to either side!

A lonely wandering Heart

Set into the east exterior wall you will come across a 14th century urn, that was said to hold the heart of the Lady of Lydlinch.  The Lady lived in West Parley until her marriage forced her to move to Sherborne but she said that as her heart was in West Parley she wanted to go there after her death.  Around the urn eight skull and bones were also found with one having coins in the eye sockets.

Getting There

Park on the side road along New Road just up from Tesco Express before the bridge.

In Summary

A lovely walk, took around an hour to the church and back again. Just watch out as there is no pavement and some of the cars do come a bit fast!