The village today

Abbotsbury village. Photo: David Purchase, geograph, CC BY-SA 2.0.

The school closed in 1981 and the building on Market Street became Strangways Hall, the village hall. In 1861 the parish had 1,069 people; the 2021 census counted 451. Abbotsbury is inside the Dorset National Landscape, and Chesil Beach and the Fleet are part of the Jurassic Coast World Heritage Site. It is one of the four villages in Chesil Bank parish and sends four councillors to the parish council. Wisden has described the cricket pitch on West Street as 'one of the most beautiful'. Among the people who have lived here are James Lovelock, who came up with the Gaia hypothesis, and Lord Neuberger, who took Abbotsbury for his title when he was made a life peer in 2007. Most of the land, the Swannery, the Gardens and a good deal of the village still belong to the Ilchester Estate, as they have since 1539.