Southwell, Dorset
| Southwell | |
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 Southwell
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| Southwell shown within Dorset | |
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| District | |
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| Region | |
| Country | England |
| Sovereign state | United Kingdom |
| Post town | Portland |
| Postcode district | DT5 |
| Dialling code | 01305 |
| Police | Dorset |
| Fire | Dorset and Wiltshire |
| Ambulance | South Western |
| EU Parliament | South West England |
| UK Parliament | |
Southwell (pronounced south-well) is a small coastal village in Tophill on the Isle of Portland, Dorset. As Portland and Dorset's southern-most village, it lies between Portland Bill and the villages of Easton and Weston. Though close to the Bill, the village is sheltered by hills on three sides. It is the only village on Portland not to be designated a conservation area.
The Great Southwell Landslip, named after the village, remains Britain's second largest recorded historical landslide on the east side of Portland, occurring in 1734, between Durdle Pier and Freshwater Bay, at a distance of one and a half miles.
Southwell has medieval origins, and was established around a natural watercourse and various springs. It is likely that the Romans developed the village water sources. The various archaeological finds around the village include Iron Age earth defences and Roman stone sarcophagi. The village grew with agricultural industry, and was surrounded by strip fields, also known as lawnsheds. From the 1840s onwards Portland saw a large increase within its population, due to the construction of Portland Harbour's Breakwaters. The island's wells and ponds could not cope, and so in 1890 work began on the digging of a deep shaft at Southwell for a new water supply. The work continued until May 1895, however the shaft was dug too deep, the water turned brackish, and the scheme has to be abandoned. The shaft, 200 feet deep, still remains underground today.
Southwell retained its small community throughout the 19th-century. In 1879, the Avalanche Memorial Church, also known as the Church of St Andrew, was built within the village. At the turn of the 20th-century, some of the village's surrounding fields would be destroyed by inland quarrying. Despite this there are remaining examples between the village, and Portland Bill. With the outbreak of World War II, a number of heavy anti-aircraft batteries were constructed to protect Portland's naval base, and Portland's HAA "C Battery" was built to the western outskirts of the village, at Barrow Hill. Following the war, the battery was retained as an Off-Site Nucleus Force Battery, though it was demolished a few years later.
At the beginning of the Cold War, the Admiralty selected Barrow Hill to build a new Admiralty Gunnery Establishment. In 1959 it became part of the Admiralty Underwater Weapons Establishment (AUWE). The establishment became infamous for the discovery of a Soviet spy ring that operated from the late 1950s until 1961 when the core of the network was arrested by the British security services. The establishment closed in the 1990s when the navy left Portland, and it became the Southwell Business Park in 1997. Throughout the 20th-century Southwell continued to remain a rural community, until the 1960s when major expansion saw many large housing and bungalow estates established. In the 1980s hundreds of starter homes were also built in the village. During 2002-03, both the Sweethill estate and the fields north of Southwell Business Park were developed.
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Wikipedia