Kington Magna

The name Kington Magna means 'great King's Town';[2][3] 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.[4][5] 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.[6][7] In 1243 it was recorded as Magna Kington.[4] Most of the current buildings in the village are no older than the seventeenth century. In 1851 a Primitive Methodist chapel was built in the village; it was on Chapel Hill, which runs parallel to Church Hill.[5] 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;[5] most of the building, except for the late 15th-century west tower, was rebuilt.[8] Near the church is a pond which was a medieval fishpond.[5]

The parish covers about 2,000 acres (800 hectares) and, as well as the main village, includes the small settlement of Nyland in the west.[8] The main village is sited on the slopes of a Corallian limestone hill,[9] 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."[2]

In the 2011 census the parish had 180 dwellings,[10] 169 households and a population of 389.[1]

The nearest railway station is in Gillingham. Trains run on the Exeter to Waterloo line.