The church is Georgian and has been built on the site of an old Priory that was founded here in 961AD, St Wolfrida died at Horton when she was the Abbess of a nunnery and this is the only church in the county that is dedicated to her. The Priory was a cell to Sherborne Abbey, Wolfryth was a Saxon and related to Alfred the Great's royal line. St Wolfrida's church Horton,  (photo kindly contributed by Ann McCallum, Brisbane, Australia)

Horton Tower, is a six storey folly which is just outside of the village and it was constructed by Humphrey Sturt in the middle of the 18th century and it has been described as an Observatory in a map of 1765 but it is also said that Sturt built it as a viewing platform to wat ch the local hunt when he became to old to ride himself.

There were two mill recorded here one for flour and the other for grain and they sat in 6 acres of meadow on the banks of the Stour.

The manor was held by the Filiol family in the 12th century and in 1548 it was sold to the Uvedale family where were Sheriffs of Dorset.

The church contains a part of the Priory wall near the chancel and it has a tower with 5 bells, and by the alter there are memorials to the Filiol family.

In 1720 the church was rebuilt when the Tower collapsed and today it is of Early Georgian with a spire. Inside the church are two effigies made of Purbeck marble and Ham stone and they commemorate Sir Giles de Barose and his wife. In the vestry is another monument this time to Henry Hastings who was the son of the Earl of Huntingdon and it is said he wove green cloths and was very keen on hunting stags and also ladies until he was 80 years old,

The village was recorded in 1033 as Hortun which came from an Anglo Saxon Chronicle, Hortune in 1086, Horton (Muddy Farm) Old English horu+tun. 

After the Battle of Sedgemoor the Duke of Monmouth was believed to have been hiding  beneath a cloak in a ditch in 1685, and there is a plaque commemorating the Monmouth Ash

WOODLANDS
Nearby is the Hamlet of Woodlands, and as the name suggests there are plenty of woods, the cottage  here are of brick and date back only as far as the 18th century. This little village had the church of the Acension in 1892 by the countess of Shaftesbury and out side it looks like a chapel but it does have some ornate fittings normally found in the High Church and Bodely designed it with two naves.

Henry Hastings was the squire of Woodlands right up till he died in 1650 aged 99 and the first Earl of Shaftesbury left the following words to him and his house that is now demolished  ‘the great hall strewed with marrow bones, full of hawks perches, hounds, spaniels, and terriers . . . hung with the fox skins of this and last years skinning'  There is an old oak that has a plaque that reads that in the 16th century  ‘According to tradition King Edward VI sat beneath this tree and touched for the King’s Evil.’