We founded our village History Group in late 2008, as a result of an aspiration identified in the Village Plan to "preserve the history of the village". The Group consisted intially of a small team of five people. This group identified and worked on a few initial projects, and exhibited their work at two village coffee mornings. They worked towards a major Sutton Poyntz History Evening in February 2010, which marked the start of a second phase for the History Group. The History Evening received an enthusiastic response, and since then the Group has tried to run History Evenings every year, either with external speakers or on topics that the History Group has researched.

 History and Heritage Group 955 b
Members of the original History Group

The Group has aimed to publish its work on the village website. Here is a list of articles:

  • A short History of the village
  • Oral History - recordings of interviews with older villagers, done as part of the Dorset AONB's Ridgeway Voices project
  • Owners of Sutton Poyntz - a history, with sources, of the families that owned the Manor of Sutton Poyntz until its sale in 1925
  • Place names - an analysis of what is known about the history of local river, hill, field and street names
  • The Sutton Poyntz chapel - evidence for the existence and location of the village's chapel, long disappeared
  • Transcriptions of major historical sources - including two early Manorial Surveys, the Tithe Survey, the Inclosure Report, censuses, directories and BMD data - these will be added to the Archive pages
  • A list of books and sources that have been useful to us

There are also a number of historical maps available.