It derives from Old English horu 'dirt' and tūn 'settlement, farm, estate', presumably meaning 'farm on muddy soil'.

The earliest reference to the one in Dorset is in a charter of 946 ACE, albeit surviving only in a fourteenth-century copy, which mentions 'oþ hore tuninge gemære' ('to the boundary of the people of Horton').

[1] The village has two unusual buildings: the Horton Tower, a five storey gothic red brick observatory designed by Humphrey Sturt whose principal purpose now is that of a disguised mobile phone mast for operator Vodafone, and the 18th century Georgian church of St Wolfrida, built on the site of the tenth century Horton Priory.

Monmouth hid in a ditch under an ash tree disguised as a shepherd but was betrayed by a local woman who, according to legend, later killed herself in remorse.

The stables, now converted into the rectory, and a large ornamental lake, remain.