OCCUPATIONS
The oldest occupation is farming, but since Romano-British
times farming and stone-quarrying have been of equal importance.
During the Nineteenth Century two Cottage Industries were practised in
the parish: buttony and straw bonnet making.
Several Schools have been founded in the parish
during the past two hundred years. Education and its ancillary services
now employ more Langtonians than any other occupation, except that of housewife.
FARMS
There are now seven farms in this parish: Coombe
Farm and Putlake Adventure Farm form part of the Encombe Estate of the
Scott family. Wilkswood and Spyway Farms are tenanted from the National
Trust, which is now the owner of the greater part of the parish. Other
farms include Knitson, Knaveswell and North Lease (or Norledge)
Some of these farms retain their Saxon names:
Knitson is 'the farm settlement of Cnightwine' or Cnightwineston; Knaveswell
is sited where a youth or knave found a spring of pure water (a well);
Putlake, originally Puck Lake, is situated upon a mischievous streamlet
prone to flooding, and this 'lake' or stream was named after the sprite
called Puck; Wilkswood was reclaimed from a section of the royal hunting
warren managed by a Saxon called Wilic; Coombe is situated in a short valley
in the hillside; and Acton was anciently (and still is) a sheep farm ('taca-ton').
Knitson and Knaveswell are on the greensand belt
between the chalk hill and the wealden clay vale. North Lease is on a sandstone
knoll in the wealden valley. Wilkswood and Coombe lie in the wealden, whilst
Acton and Putlake are on the windy limestone plateau.
QUARRIES
Some were cliff-side quarries for Portland Stone,
others were inland quarry-mines for Purbeck Limestone. At one time
there were about 100 family quarry-mines in the parish. During the last
three centuries these were worked by families bearing the names Norman,
Lander, Harris, Corben, Phippard, Brown, Harden, Burt, Bonfield, Benfield
and Bower. There were so many families. called Bower that subsidiary surnames
were used in place of the common one: these included Gad, Whistler, Ivamy,
Sugar, Cake, Short, Ball, Tite, Coffin, Corben and Thorn. Remains
of the capstans or winches, especially the 'crab-stones' which held them
upright, and the quarr sheds in which the quarriers cut and shaped the
stone, can still be seen, often still within the dry stone wall which enclosed
the mine-shaft or 'slide'.
Nowadays there are eight open-cast quarries being
worked in Langton Matravers in the region of Acton in the south-west sector
of the parish. These quarries provide work for nine men of the village,
including two part-time workmen