The small hamlet of Lydlinch in the Vale of Blackmore is immortalized by a legend and a poem. Young William Barnes remembered Lydlinch bells because their sound wafted across meadows to his home in nearby Bagber.

'And when the bells with changing peal
Did smite their own folks window-panes,
Their softened sound did often steal
With west winds through the Bagber lanes;
Or, as the wind did shift, would go
Where woody stock do nestle low,
Or where the risen moon did light
The walls of Thornhill on the height.
Or Lydllnch Bells be good for sound
And liked by all the neighbours round'.

The five bells still hang in the tower of the 13th century church. Beneath an avenue of trees near the church porch is an old tomb, the resting place of The Lady of Lydllnch, but no one knows who she was. On the tomb we read:

'Here lie the remains of a lady who gave to the rector of this church forever one portion of tyths arising out of Dudsbury farm in West Parley and another out of Knowle Farm in Woodlands'.

To complete the story, we have to journey far down the Stour valley to West Parley on the outskirts of Bournemouth, where the nameless Lady of Lydllnch, who had endowed Parley church, wanted her heart to be buried. Six hundred years later the urn containing the heart was dug up and placed in a niche in the outer wall of the chancel of the restored church. This lady bountiful with her heart in Parley and her body in a nameless grave at Lydlinch must have dearly loved both villages.