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Merley is a large housing estate in the unparished area of Poole, a mile (2 km) south of Wimborne Minster. Originally called Myrle, Merley was a manor in the tithing of Great Canford (or Canford Magna). The village merges with that of Oakley, and the housing estate was originally going to be called "Oakley Garden Village", note Oakley Shops and other signposts around the community but the name was changed. The housing estate only covers part of the area that was originally called Merley/Myrle. The Poole ward is Merley and Bearwood. The population of this ward taken at the 2011 census was 10,392.

Merley is part of the greater ward called "Merley and Bearwood" and here are some statistics on this area:

A café has stood in the same spot since 1904 and the current building opened in 1953. In 2016, when the National Trust announced that they would be moving the café and public toilets to higher ground due to "coastal erosion and subsidence", 3,000 people signed a petition opposing the move. Plans to demolish the café were later rejected by a vote of National Trust members at their annual general meeting. In November 2022 the café was condemned to be demolished after the lease on the property ran out. The café closed for the final time on 2 January 2023.

The estate was once owned by the Abbey of Cerne from around the year 987 and after the dissolution of the monasteries around 1539 it was passed to Winchester College who in 1642 leased it to the John Churchill father of the first Sir Winston Churchill (1620-88), then it was inherited by his son Charles who died without an heir so the house went to his wife's family the Goulds who sold it to Admiral Robert Digby in 1768. Robert Digby's brother was Henry the 7th Lord Digby who owned Sherborne Castle. When Robert died in 1815 the house passed to his nephew Sir Henry Digby who later purchased the freehold from Winchester College in 1856. Sir Henry was a senior British naval officer, who served in the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in the Royal Navy and it was his wealth that established the original manor house, the bulk of which came from prize money. In 1799 he had been given command of the frigate HMS Alcmene, during which time he captured dozens of small merchant ships and had a hand in seizing the Spanish treasure frigates Santa Brigada and Thetis. The resulting prize fund was one of the richest ever recorded, the sterling value of the cargo was calculated as not less than £618,040 in 1799 (equivalent to £64,600,000 in 2021)

In the 16th Century, Crichel House was owned by the Uvedales and then ownership changed to the Sturts. The eminent judge Sir Robert Napier l bought the house in the early 1600s. In a fire in 1742, the house was ruined and was rebuilt for Sir William Napier, 2nd Barnet, a descendant of Sir Robert. When the estate was passed on in 1765 to Humphrey Sturt, the house was modified massively. To make way for new parkland, the village was moved south; due to this the original site of Moor Crichel is now beneath the lake.

The most recent owners of the mill when it was still in operation were Parsons and Sons. They used the mill until selling it in 1957. Their name still remains on the outside of the mill. The mill has been closed since 1974, when it stopped operating due water drying up with the creation of a flood relief scheme further up the river. Although not in use, the early 20th Century milling machinery still remains. Examples of this can still be seen, notably the 50" turbine drove water for mill. This is located on the grass outside the mill and was made by local Ringwood firm, Armfields.

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We also used the following coordinates to generate the Google Map displayed on this page.  latitude 50.784377 and longitude -1.972322