| Stourpaine |
| Below a large hill called Hod and where
the Stour meets the River Ewerne is the village of Stourpaine. This is
divided into two by the Shaftesbury road and on one side is a modern
council house estate an on the other are thatched cottages clustered
around a church with and embattled tower that is 500 years old.
This is the church of Holy Trinity and the tower dates back to the 15th century while the main body of the church is from 1858 though some of the original windows have been retained. The tower has a kneeling figure of a vicar from around 1670 that as erected by the man himself just before he died, Hod Cottage is an unusual building with an ancient windows upstairs where for more than 400 years maidens have chatted to passers by. Hod Hill was once occupied by Britons and Romans as tools, bits of harness and coins have been found on the top. It is here that the famed Great Dorset Steam Fair was started but is now held at Tarrant Hinton and Henry Lamb the Australian born artists painted his Advanced Dressing Station on the Struma in 1920 and used local residents as his models.
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