There are today twelve Dorset parishes that bear the name 'Winterbourne', distinguished from each other by an epithet, derived either from a particular natural feature or from the name of a family that held the manor in medieval times. They lie along two rivers called Winterbourne, a name that in Dorset, and also in Wiltshire is applied to a river that flows in winter but dries up in summer.
The South Winterbourne River rises in the west of this parish in a wood about half a mile from the village, close to the A35 trunk road. It runs east (in winter) alongside the main road through the village and continues along a shallow valley through Steepleton village and then on through other Winterbourne's south of Dorchester to join the river Frome.
Winter snow even reaches Dorset sometimes, transforming the landscape with its cold white blanket making the summer seem both more attractive and yet somehow its arrival difficult to conceive. They say in these parts that a hard winter hails a good summer: let’s hope so. As we’ve had frosts of -8o C which caused the sea to freeze and now the snow, it should prove to be a very, very good summer.
