Kington Magna
Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox UK place
Kington Magna is a village and civil parish in the Blackmore Vale area of Dorset, England, about Template:Convert southwest of Gillingham.
History
The name Kington Magna means 'great King's Town';<ref name=Treves>Template:Cite book</ref><ref>Template:Cite book</ref> it derives from cyne- (later cyning) and tūn, Old English for 'royal estate or manor'. The affix magna, Latin for great, was added to distinguish it from Little Kington, a smaller settlement nearby.<ref name=mills>Template:Cite book</ref><ref name=life>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1086 in the Domesday Book these were recorded together in three entries as Chintone, which had 27 households and a total taxable value of 13 geld units, and was in the hundred of Gillingham.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref><ref>Template:Cite web</ref> In 1243 it was recorded as Magna Kington.<ref name=mills/> Most of the current buildings in the village are no older than the seventeenth century.Template:Citation needed In 1851 a Primitive Methodist chapel was built in the village; it was on Chapel Hill, which runs parallel to Church Hill.<ref name=life/> In 1860 a pottery was established at Bye Farm, north of the main village; it manufactured tiles, drainpipes, bricks, and chimney and flower pots. The parish church of All Saints was restored and enlarged in 1862;<ref name=life/> most of the building, except for the late 15th-century west tower, was rebuilt.<ref name=inventory/> Near the church is a pond which was a medieval fishpond.<ref name=life/>
Geography
The parish covers about Template:Convert and, as well as the main village, includes the small settlement of Nyland in the west.<ref name=inventory>Template:Cite web</ref> The main village is sited on the slopes of a Corallian limestone hill,<ref>Template:Cite book</ref> overlooking the flat Oxford Clay valley of the small River Cale, which drains into the Stour. In 1906 Sir Frederick Treves wrote in his Highways & Byways in Dorset that the village "straggles down hill like a small mountain stream."<ref name=Treves/>
Demography
In the 2011 census the parish had 180 dwellings,<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> 169 households and a population of 389.<ref name=ons/>
Transport
The nearest railway station is in Gillingham. Trains run on the Exeter to Waterloo line.