East Stour, Dorset
| East Stour | |
|---|---|
 East Stour |
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 East Stour
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| East Stour shown within Dorset | |
| Population | 573 |
| OS grid reference | ST |
| District | |
| Shire county | |
| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | GILLINGHAM |
| Postcode district | SP8 |
| Dialling code | 01747 |
| Police | Dorset |
| Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
East Stour is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It lies within the North Dorset administrative district, about 2 miles (3.2 km) south of the town of Gillingham. The village is sited half a mile from the east bank of the River Stour in the Blackmore Vale and two miles west of the broadly conical local landmark Duncliffe Hill (210 m). Above the west bank of the river, about a mile away, is the village of West Stour. The A30 London to Penzance road passes through the village. In the 2011 census the civil parish had a population of 573.
Part of the shaft of a cross, probably dating from the late 10th or early 11th century, was found in 1939 when a house in the village was demolished. The stone fragment has a cross-section a little under 30 centimetres (12 in) square and is about 70 centimetres (28 in) high; its faces are embellished with vine-scroll, interlace and palmette ornament. It was transferred to the British Museum.
In the Domesday Book of 1086 East Stour and West Stour together were recorded as Stur or Sture, which had 73 households and administratively was in Gillingham Hundred. A 1695 map shows the village name as Stower Estover.
East Stour village was the original settlement in the parish, with study of field boundaries suggesting that encroachment on the "waste" or common land subsequently occurred eastwards, initially immediately east of the village, then further east in post-medieval times. The farms at New House and Cole Street in the northeast of the parish date from settlement in the late 18th century, and in the southeast the waste was enclosed in 1804.
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