Here is a village that should not really be here as it was practically wiped out by the Black Death. Situated a couple of miles outside of Beaminster it is often confused with a hamlet of the same name near Almer. But this one has one of the stateliest homes in Dorset, in Mapperton House, that was recorded in the Domesday Survey as Malperetone.

The house was the property of William de Moion who was the Sheriff of Somerset. And from then on it belonged to only four familes linked by descent in the female line, the Bretts, Morgans, Brodrepps and Comptons  The house was enlarged in the 1670s and is a splendid example of a West Country Manor.

It is now the home of the Earl and Countess of Sandwich, but it is still a family house and harks back to the restoration of Charles II and when the first Earl of Sandwich brought Charles back from Holland.

It was constructed during the time Henry VIII was on the throne by Robert and Mary Morgan, and he was one of a select company who was allowed to wear their hats in the presence of royalty. The front of this grand house was added during the reign of James I and a small stone church faces it, it is dedicated to All Saints and was built in 1704. A recent addition is the Italian terraced gardens which has been described as "A secret valley garden beside one of Dorset's finest manor houses. Italianate walled garden and fountain court; topiary; grottoes; statuary; orangery; dovecote; specimen shrubs and trees. Set in an ancient wooded landscape of hills and hedgerows." These gardens were designed by Mrs Ethel Labouchere and more recently by Victor Montagu who purchased Mapperton after she died in 1956. The gardens fall in descending levels down the valley with ponds and a grassy walk edged with trees that seem to blend away into the countryside.