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Beaminster is a small town and civil parish in Dorset, England, situated in the West Dorset administrative district approximately northwest of the county town Dorchester. It is sited in a bowl-shaped valley near the source of the small River Brit. The 2013 mid-year estimate of the population of Beaminster parish is 3,100. In its history Beaminster has been a centre of manufacture of linen and woollens, the raw materials for which were produced in the surrounding countryside. The town experienced three serious fires in the 17th and 18th centuries; the first of these, during the English Civil War, almost destroyed the fabric of the town. Beaminster parish church is notable for its architecture, particularly its handsome tower. ==History== In the Domesday Book of 1086 the manor of Beaminster was recorded as being owned by the See of Salisbury. Bishop Osmund gave it as a supplement to two of the Cathedral prebends in 1091. In the English Civil War the town declared for Parliament and was sacked by Royalist forces in 1644. Prince Maurice stayed in the town on Palm Sunday,〔 though his stay was brief because a fire, caused by a musket being discharged into a thatched roof, almost totally destroyed the town.〔 The town suffered further accidental fires in 1684 and 1781.〔Newman & Pevsner, 1972, page 86〕 Previously Beaminster was a centre for the production of linen and woollens. Flax was grown and sheep kept on the surrounding hills and the town was locally more important than it is today: factories were constructed in the 18th and early 19th centuries, and as many as seventeen inns existed in the town in the early 20th century. No railway line came through Beaminster and as a result the town declined relative to other local towns such as Bridport and Dorchester. Horn Park, about north-west of Beaminster, is a neo-Georgian country house of five bays and two-storeys designed by architect T. Lawrence Dale and completed in 1911.〔Newman & Pevsner, 1972, page 88〕 Inside the house the central corridor is barrel vaulted and leads to a drawing room whose groin vault is reminiscent of the work of Sir John Soane (1753-1837).〔 The drawing room includes Jacobean features re-used from a 16th-century country house at nearby Parnham,〔 which was being altered and restored at about the time that Horn Park was being built.〔Newman & Pevsner, 1972, page 87〕 Horn Park is Listed Grade II. Its gardens are occasionally open to the public as part of the National Gardens Scheme. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Beaminster」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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