Early evidence of their use in Britain includes: an equal hour horary quadrant from 1396, in England, a 1445 inscription on the tower of Heathfield Church, Sussex ; a 1448 inscription on a wooden lych-gate of Bray Church, Berkshire ; and a 1487 inscription on the belfry door at Piddletrenthide church, Dorset ; and in Scotland a 1470 inscription on the tomb of the first Earl of Huntly in Elgin Cathedral.

Elizabeth was baptised on 10 September ; Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the Marquess of Exeter, the Duchess of Norfolk and the Dowager Marchioness of Dorset stood as her four godparents.

* John of Ford ( ca. 1140 – 1214 ), English religious leader who, from 1191 until his death, served as abbot of Dorset Cistercian monastery Forde Abbey ; ally of King John

The name is not unique ; there was a monolith with the same name recorded in the 19th century by antiquarian Charles Warne at Long Bredy in Dorset.

Stephen's long-standing commander William of Ypres remained with the queen in London ; William Martel, the royal steward, commanded operations from Sherborne in Dorset, and Faramus of Boulogne ran the royal household.

He first contributed the Dorset dialect poems for which he is best known to periodicals, including Macmillan's Magazine ; a collection in book form Poems of Rural Life in the Dorset Dialect, was published in 1844.

The Inquisitio Eliensis is a record of the lands of Ely Abbey ; and the Exon Domesday ( so called from the preservation of the volume at Exeter ), which covers Cornwall, Devon, Dorset, Somerset, Wiltshire ( however only one manor of Wiltshire is included and parts of Devon, Dorset and Somerset are also wanting ) also all contain the full details supplied by the original returns.

* Thomas Grey, Earl of Huntingdon, Marquess of Dorset and Lord Ferrers de Groby ( 1457 – 20 September 1501 ), married firstly Anne Holland, but she died young without issue ; he married secondly on 18 July 1474, Cecily Bonville, suo jure Baroness Harington and Bonville, by whom he had fourteen children.

In the years 1770 till 1790 at least six people who had contact with a cow had tested independently the possibility of using the cowpox vaccine as an immunization for smallpox in humans for the first time ; among them the English farmer Benjamin Jesty, in Dorset, in 1774 and the German teacher Peter Plett in 1791.

A 1998 MAFF ( now DEFRA ) study on wild boar living wild in Britain confirmed the presence of two populations of wild boar living in Britain ; one in Kent / East Sussex and another in Dorset.

Independence II has been called an intermediate phase between the earlier cultures and the Dorset culture, which arrived in Greenland in around 700 BC ; recent studies have shown the cultures may be identical within Greenland.

* Lady Mary Seymour ( born 1552 ) married three times ( Andrew Rogers, of Bryanstone, Dorset ; Sir Henry Peyton ; General Francis Cosbie )

Her third son, Reginald Pole, studied abroad in Padua ; he was dean in Exeter and in Dorset, and canon in York, as well as several other livings, although he had not been ordained a priest.

A team of Royal Engineer ( RE ) officers was assembled at the Military Engineering Experimental Establishment ( MEXE ), in Barrack Road Christchurch, Dorset, in 1941 and 1942 ; among them were Robin Foulkes, Darrell Herbert, John de Waele, and Bill Buckle, all R. E.

Stephen's long-standing commander William of Ypres remained with the queen in London ; William Martel, the royal steward, commanded operations from Sherborne in Dorset, and Faramus of Boulogne ran the royal household.

It should be mentioned that Brittany Ferries to Poole briefly stopped their conventional ferry service in early 2010 but resumed it in February 2011 ; the seasonal catermaran service continues to run, as does the freight service to the Dorset port.

Every year Wimborne hosts the longest fireworks display in Dorset, as part of its Guy Fawkes celebrations ; a county record that it has held for the last seven years.

There are around 31 hill forts in Dorset ; archaeologist Sharples, who undertook excavations at Maiden Castle, proposed that hill forts were used to control agricultural land to support a large community.

In the Early Iron Age, Maiden Castle was generally unexceptional ; it was one of over 100 hill forts of similar size built around the same time in the area that is now Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, and Wiltshire.

Good quality iron ore could be found in the surrounding area, but the hill fort does not appear to have been a centre for iron production in this period ; this is not unusual as very few hill forts in Berkshire, Dorset, Hampshire, and Wiltshire exhibit traces of iron production.

Charles was baptised in the Chapel Royal on 27 June by the Anglican Bishop of London William Laud and brought up in the care of the Protestant Countess of Dorset, though his godparents included his mother's Catholic relations, Louis XIII and Marie de ' Medici.

In Britain, the Imperial War Museum in London, and the Royal Armoured Corps Tank Museum in Bovington, Dorset, hold examples of the Matilda II.

Peter Phillips went to Port Regis Prep School in Shaftesbury, Dorset before following other members of the Royal Family by attending Gordonstoun School in Moray, Scotland.

It appears likely that up to the end of World War I, the Royal Arsenal would have been guarded by the Metropolitan Police Force, as they also guarded the Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath, in Dorset and the Royal Naval Armaments Depot at Priddy's Hard, Gosport up to that time.

Royal Signals officers receive a general military training at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst, followed by specialist communications training at the Royal School of Signals, Blandford Camp, Dorset.

In 1994, The Royal Corps of Signals relocated its training regiments: 11th Signal Regiment ( the Recruit Training Regiment ) and 8th Signal Regiment ( the Trade Training School ), from Catterick Garrison, North Yorkshire to Blandford Camp in Dorset, where the Royal School of Signals was already based.

* HMS Grasshopper was the name of the Royal Navy base at Weymouth, Dorset during World War II.

The 8th and 9th Light Horse Regiments, 3rd Light Horse Brigade, with the 1 / 1st Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry, 6th Mounted Yeomanry Brigade, on their right and 1st Nottinghamshire Battery Royal Horse Artillery on the left of the 6th Mounted Yeomanry Brigade and Berkshire Battery in the centre enfiladed the advancing Ottoman formations.

In the following years he became a member of the Royal Council, and was appointed Constable at the castles of Montgomery, Bridgnorth in Shropshire, and Corfe in Dorset.

On the death of the latter's cousin, Charles Sackville-Germain, 5th Duke of Dorset, in 1845, the dukedom and its subsidiary titles became extinct and the Sackville estates passed through Elizabeth to the West family who assumed the additional surname of Sackville by Royal license.

The Britannia Cruise Terminal, which was opened in July 1999 and again refurbished in 2005 has seen the likes of Royal Caribbean, Azamara, Club Cruises, Saga and Crystal Cruises use it as a start point for excursions in the wider Dorset region and beyond.

* Bovington Tank Museum, Dorset, UK — one of a number assembled by British Army Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers for trials, late production model.

After evacuating from France he oversaw the raising of the 9th Battalion of the Royal Sussex Regiment and then commanded the 210th Infantry Brigade in Dorset from November 1940.

On 16 December 2004, it was announced that the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment was to be disbanded-the Gloucestershire element, along with the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment was to be merged with the Light Infantry, while the Berkshire and Wiltshire elements would have merged with the Princess of Wales's Royal Regiment.

The regiment would still merge with the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment resulting in a single battalion, however, they were now to join a new large regiment created by the amalgamation of The Light Infantry and the Royal Green Jackets.

The battalion that will result from the merger of the Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Regiment and the Devonshire and Dorset Regiment will be designated 1st Battalion, The Rifles.

However, on 24 November 2005 it was announced that after discussions between The Light Infantry and the RGJ, the two would be merged with the Devonshire and Dorset Light Infantry and Royal Gloucestershire, Berkshire and Wiltshire Light Infantry ( RGBW ) by the end of 2007 to form a single large regiment to be called The Rifles.

Admiral Raeder wanted a front stretching from Dover to Eastbourne, stressing that shipping between Cherbourg / Le Havre and Dorset would be exposed to attacks from the Navy based in Portsmouth and Plymouth.

* Stuart Morris, ( 2011 ), Dorset ; The Royal Navy ( illustrated ): The Dovecote Press, Wimborne, Dorset: ISBN 978-1-904349-88-4

During World War I and II Dorset, located on the English Channel, was both a target and important to the Royal Navy.

Eight ships of the Royal Navy have been named HMS Portland, either after Portland Harbour in Dorset or after holders of the title of the Duke of Portland:

Allen was born in Weymouth, Dorset and entered the Royal Navy.

These were the Royal Navy Cordite Factory, Holton Heath ( RNCF ), Dorset ( World War I & World War II ), and the Royal Navy Propellant Factory, Caerwent ( RNPF ), Monmouthshire ( World War II only ), respectively.

He was the only son of Royal Navy lieutenant James Bremer ( who went missing in the East Indiaman Halswell off the coast of Dorset, England, on 6 January 1786 ) and his wife Ann, daughter of Captain James Norman.