West Dean is a small village in Wiltshire, England. The village was mentioned in the Cartularium saxonicum for the year 880 as (æt) Deone, as Duene in the Domesday Book, as Westdone in 1265, and as Westdune in 1270.[1]
Borbach Chantry was built in 1333. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building[2] and is now in the care of the Churches Conservation Trust.[3] The chapel was built of flint with limestone dressings, about 1333 by Robert de Borbach as part of a fourteenth century parish church, but is all that remains. When the church was demolished in 1868 the arcade which connected the chapel to the church was walled up and a new south porch added.[2] The chapel contains a series of monuments, including those to the parliamentarian John Evelyn who died in 1684 and his family.[3][4] Other memorials are to the Pierrepont family who inherited the adjacent manor house from him, which has since been demolished.[5] The church was declared redundant in 1971.[6]
More recently the village has seen the growth of the railway (Dean station is still open and active), the failure of the Salisbury and Southampton Canal system (walks exist), and the rise and fall of the MoD presence in the village.