West Orchard

West Orchard is a small village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in southern England. It is situated in the Blackmore Vale in the Dorset administrative district, approximately halfway between the towns of Shaftesbury and Sturminster Newton. It is separated from the adjacent settlement of East Orchard by a stream. In 2013 the civil parish had an estimated population of 50.^[1] For local government purposes the parish is grouped with the parishes of East Orchard and Margaret Marsh, to form a Group Parish Council.^[2]

West Orchard
West Orchard
West Orchard Location within Dorset
Population	50
OS grid reference	ST823164
Civil parish	West Orchard
Unitary authority	Dorset
Ceremonial county	Dorset
Region	South West
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SHAFTESBURY
Postcode district	SP7
Dialling code	01747
Police	Dorset
Fire	Dorset and Wiltshire
Ambulance	South Western
UK Parliament	North Dorset
List of places UK England Dorset 50.9478°N 2.2532°W / 50.9478; -2.2532

St Luke's Church was rebuilt in 1876–77 to the designs of Thomas Henry Wyatt, but the chancel is 15th-century.^[3]

Etymology

The name of West Orchard is first attested in a charter of 939 (surviving in a fifteenth-century copy), in the form Archet. The name derives from the Common Brittonic words that survive in modern Welsh as ar ("on") and coed ("wood"), and thus the name once meant "at the wood". Its modern form shows assimilation to the English noun orchard through folk-etymology.^{[4][5]: 295} The element West was added to the name later when the settlement became distinct from East Orchard.