Three Legged Cross

Three Legged Cross is an extended village within Verwood civil parish in east Dorset, England. It lies to the south of the town of Verwood and to the north of West Moors. Its population in 2014 was estimated at 2,740.[1]

Three Legged Cross

Ringwood Road, Three Legged Cross
Three Legged Cross
Location within Dorset
Population2,740 (2014 est.)
OS grid referenceSU079057
Civil parish
Unitary authority
Ceremonial county
Region
CountryEngland
Sovereign stateUnited Kingdom
Post townWIMBORNE
Postcode districtBH21
Dialling code01202
PoliceDorset
FireDorset and Wiltshire
AmbulanceSouth Western
UK Parliament

Origins

Various explanations have been put forward for the etymology of 'Three Legged Cross', which is recorded as a toponym from the sixteenth century onwards. One theory is that a type of gibbet known as a 'three-legged mare' once stood here;[2] another theory is that there may once have been a boundary stone in the area marking the convergence of three great estates: Lord Shaftesbury's to the west, Lord Normanton's to the north and east, and the nineteenth-century banking family, the Rolles-Fryer's, to the south.[3] The simpler explanation is that the name signifies the zigzagging configuration of the B3072 through this district, whereby the road is effectively divided into three separate stretches, or 'legs'.[4]

References
  1. Parish & Ward Population Data - Dorset County Council 2014
  2. A. D. Mills, Dorset Place-Names (1986), p. 144.
  3. J. Coulthard, Verwood: Village to Town (2007), p. 10.
  4. A. J. McKinstry, 'Crosses Revisited - Part Two', in The Journal of the Christchurch Local History Society (February 2012), p. 7.

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