Dibden Purlieu

Coordinates: 50°51′07″N 1°24′54″W / 50.852°N 1.415°W / 50.852; -1.415

Dibden Purlieu
Dibden Purlieu village centre following snowfall
Dibden Purlieu  Dibden Purlieu shown within Hampshire
OS grid reference	SU412061
Parish	Hythe and Dibden
District	New Forest
Shire county	Hampshire
Region	South East
Country	England
Sovereign state	United Kingdom
Post town	SOUTHAMPTON
Postcode district	SO45
Dialling code	023
Police	Hampshire
Fire	Hampshire
Ambulance	South Central
EU Parliament	South East England
UK Parliament	New Forest East
List of places: UK • England • Hampshire

St Andrew's Church in Dibden Purlieu

Dibden Purlieu (pronounced /ˌdɪbdɛn ˈpɝːluː/) is a village situated on the edge of the New Forest in Hampshire, UK. The village merges with the nearby town of Hythe.

The approximate population is around 4000 people. The regular Blue Star bus service provides Purlieu's quickest link with the city of Southampton. Dibden Purlieu is twinned with Mauves-sur-Loire, France.

History

Dibden Purlieu was in the parish of Dibden, referred to in the Domesday Book of 1086 as Deepdene, "dene" being an Anglo-Saxon word for valley.^[1] Purlieu is a Norman-French word meaning "the outskirts of a forest" – a place free from forest laws. In this particular case Dibden Purlieu was land removed from the New Forest in the 14th century when the forest boundaries were established by perambulations about 1300.^[2] In practice the king retained or claimed, certain rights in the area, and the activities of the royal foresters in enforcing forest law there were a matter of great resentment.^[2] Up to the 1950s Dibden Purlieu was a small settlement next to the village of Dibden, but the expansion of Fawley Refinery lead to a demand for more houses for workers, and Hythe and Dibden Purlieu were allowed to expand into a small town.^[3] In 1983 the parish was renamed, and Dibden Purlieu is now part of the parish of Hythe and Dibden.^[4]

A resident of Dibden Purlieu, Richard Eurich RA OBE, was the war artist to the Admiralty from 1941.

Schools

Dibden Purlieu has two large secondary schools; Noadswood School and Applemore Technology College. Totton College also has a small campus in the village.

The primary schools include Wildground, in Armitage Avenue (of which, the junior school opened in 1962, and the infant school two years later). Prior to that, the school had occupied temporary accommodation in Winfield Road, and had had to overspill into the Women's Institute Hall across the road.

References

1. ^ Dibden, Old Hampshire Gazetteer
2. ^ ^{a b} Dibden Purlieu, Old Hampshire Gazetteer
3. ^ Journal of the Town Planning Institute, (1953), Volume 39, page 87: "At Fawley the construction of Europe's largest oil refinery on Southampton Water has created a demand for more housing accommodation and it is proposed to satisfy this by expanding the existing villages of Hythe and Dibden Purlieu into a small town of 10,000."
4. ^ What is the Parish Council, Hythe and Dibden Parish Council

External links

Media related to Dibden Purlieu at Wikimedia Commons

• Hythe and Dibden Parish Council
• Wildground Infant School
• Wildground Junior School