Nether Compton

Template:Short description Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use British English Template:Infobox UK place

Nether Compton is a village and civil parish in the English county of Dorset, situated approximately Template:Convert west of Sherborne and 3 miles east of Yeovil in Somerset. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 328.<ref name=ons/>

History

Nether Compton was burnt in 1066 by William, Duke of Normandy.Template:Citation needed

The parish church of St. Nicholas has a 13th-century chancel, nave and south porch. The west tower, north chapel and nave windows demonstrate that the church was altered significantly in the 15th century. The whole building was then restored in the 1880s, when the chapel was extended and various internal modifications made.<ref>Royal Commission on Historical Monuments England, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Vol. 1, West Dorset, London: HMSO, 1952, pp. 100-101.</ref> The stone screen is Perpendicular and the pulpit early 17th century.<ref>John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Dorset, Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972, p. 304. Template:ISBN</ref> The west tower houses five bells: one from the 15th century (Salisbury foundry, inscribed "Sit Semper Sine Ve Qui Michi Dicit Ave"), one dated 1585, two dated 1658 (Thomas Purdue, Closworth) and one from 1886 (Gillett and Co., Croydon).<ref>Christopher Dalton, Bells and Belfries of Dorset, Ullingswick: Upper Court Press, 2000-2005, vol. 2, pp. 491-494. See also the relevant page of the online Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers</ref>

Many of the buildings in the village date from when it was improved in the last decades of the 19th centuryTemplate:Citation needed, Colonel John R. P. Goodden having inherited Compton House in 1883. Architect Evelyn Hellicar (1862–1929) is responsible for a number of the buildings.<ref>Hellicar obituary, RIBA Journal, 21 September 1929, p. 772</ref> These include Sheriff's Lodge (1889). The Grade II listed former village school, built c. 1843, is now a private home.

The village was rated as among the "20 most beautiful villages in the UK and Ireland" by Condé Nast Traveler in 2020.<ref>{{#invoke:citation/CS1|citation |CitationClass=web }}</ref>

Notable residents

Nether Compton was the childhood home of BAFTA Award winning actress Kristin Scott Thomas and of her younger sister, Serena Scott Thomas, also an actress, who was born in the village.

Harald Penrose (1904-1996), British test pilot and aviation author, lived in Nether Compton for more than fifty years in a house of his own design.<ref>Philip Jarrett, "Obituary: Harald Penrose", The Independent, 11 September 1996</ref>

Over Compton was the childhood home of Silicon Valley entrepreneur and award-winning designer Joseph Oliver (formerly Poynter, foster child of Peter and Catherine McQueen).