Long Crichel
Long Crichel is a small village and former civil parish, now in the parish of Crichel, in east Dorset, England, situated on Cranborne Chase five miles northeast of Blandford Forum. In 2001 it had a population of 81. The civil parish was abolished on 1 April 2015 and merged with Moor Crichel to form Crichel.
The village church is St Mary's Church, Long Crichel. The tower of the church dates from the 15th century, and the rest of the church was rebuilt in 1851. It was declared redundant on 1 July 2003, and was vested in the Friends of Friendless Churches during 2010.
Long Crichel House was bought in 1945 by Edward Sackville-West, from 1962 the 5th Baron Sackville, the music critic Desmond Shawe-Taylor and art critic Eardley Knollys, who established "what in effect was a male salon, entertaining at the weekends a galaxy of friends from the worlds of books and music" in Long Crichel, including James Lees-Milne, a close friend of Knollys.
By the mid-1960s Sackville, who died in 1965, and Knollys had been replaced by the literary critic Raymond Mortimer and Patrick Trevor-Roper.
