a view of the village

We Offer:

extensive menu

daily specials

fine selection of wines

cask beers

comfortable bar area with
    open fire

patio area and beer
    garden

large car park

functions and buffets
catered for

Some history of the Ilchester Arms Hotel

Edward I gave Abbotsbury a charter for a market in 1271, presumably held in the square at the head of Market Street. The 1774 edition of Hutchings' "History of Dorset" refers to "a very ancient but mean market house in the middle of town now divided into three tenements", but the Victorian edition of the book adds the words "which has since been removed. The site is known by the vulgar appellation of Tal-hal, doubtless a corruption of the Toll hall". There have been other changes over the years ~ the large arch under the central gable is surely not just decorative, and the keystone to the lintel of one of the ground floor windows is well off-centre.

Was this once the Ship Inn ? A pub of that name features in the 18th century story of Elizabeth Canning, a London girl who claimed to have been kidnapped by a gang whose alibi was that they had been in Abbotsbury at the time, an alibi which was supported by witnesses all the way up to, and including, the Lord Mayor of London, suggesting the importance of the gang to the lucrative Dorset smuggling business and its well-heeled customers. At any rate, the alibi was good enough to have the original trial verdict overturned.

In March 1808, the Ship was host to a feast for the entire village (around 1000 people at that time) to celebrate the 21st birthday of the then Earl of Ilchester. Queen Victoria is reputed to have visited the inn on a visit to Abbotsbury in 1846, while waiting for her coach wheel to be repaired.

The Ship Inn is listed under that name in the 1871 and 1875 directories, but the Ilchester Arms first appears in the 1889 edition. Tom Cooper, the landlord of the "Ilch" in Victorian times wrote, in 1884, one of the earliest guidebooks to the village, and made sure that his readers knew all about his five-star, royalty-patronised establishment.

The Royal Room circa 1884

The coat of arms above the doorway was renovated in 1976. The arms on the gable are not the same as those on the inn sign. The arms on the gable are those of Sir Stephen Fox before he was ennobled as the first Earl of Ilchester, and those on the sign are the arms of the Fox-Strangways family.

The inn itself was remodelled in 1984 and again in the late 1990s, when a lot of old furniture and bric-a-brac was removed. It has since changed hands once more, and has returned to looking more like the "Ilch" of old.