Description
Child Okeford is situated at the foot of Hambledon Hill, a Neolithic ceremonial burial site with an Iron Age hill fort. The hill was the site of a battle in the English Civil War. A century later General James Wolfe used the hill's steeper sides to prepare his troops; they later surprised the French at Quebec by scaling the Plains of Abraham under cover of darkness.
In 1561 William Kethe was appointed vicar. He remained in the village until his death in 1594. Kethe is best known as the author of the well-known hymn, The Old Hundredth, better known by its first line "All People That on Earth Do Dwell", which he adapted from Psalm 100.
A World War I war memorial in the form of a stone cross stands at the road junction known in the village as The Cross. Old records speak of a megalith that used to lie where The Cross is now, marking an ancient crossroads.
The Somerset and Dorset Railway ran to the west of the village, through neighbouring Shillingstone, until the line closed in 1966 under the Beeching cuts. The Shillingstone Station, however, is being refurbished under the Shillingstone Station Project.
Today there are a variety of shops and businesses in the village. Gold Hill Farm, a small business community, is home to an organic food shop, a café, a rushwork workshop and an art gallery.
The village was the last home, until his death in 1989, of the puppeteer and children's entertainer Harry Corbett, creator of the TV glove puppet characters Sooty and Sweep. It is also the present home of composer Sir John Tavener.
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