[4] Abbas Combe was recorded in the Domesday Book of 1086–7 as Cumbe, when it was held by the church of St Edward, Shaftesbury.

[8][9] After they were suppressed in 1312 it was granted to the Knights Hospitaller who held it until the dissolution of the monasteries,[6] after which it was acquired by Richard Duke (d. 1572) of Otterton, Devon.

An attempt to discover 'the village of the templars' was made by the Time Team television series, in a programme first shown in 1996.

Late in the investigation, an old tithe map revealed the location of the Templar site, and an old stone boundary wall was found to be still standing 7 ft (2.1 m) high.

On the rising ground at the S. of the village are the remains of a preceptory of the Knights Templars, founded in the 12th century by Serlo Fitz-Odo.

A long building, which was perhaps once the refectory, but which is now used as a barn, will be noticed abutting on a farm-house along the road to Milborne Port.

It was found by Time Team that the long building post-dated the preceptory, having timbers dated to c. 1620; but that the chapel, since demolished, and with only footings remaining, was authentically Templar.

This unusual characteristic was shared with Limerick Junction in County Tipperary in Ireland, and also previously with Dorchester South.

[15] The church contains a panel painting discovered in a local cottage which has been carbon dated to around 1280 which is believed to be linked to the period when the Knights Templar held the village.

[16] Until the dissolution of the monasteries in the 1540s, the church was under the patronage of Shaftesbury Abbey, entitling them to appoint the vicar and collect income from the parish.

The church patronage or advowson was then held by the lord of the manor of Abbas Combe until it reverted to the diocese of Bath and Wells in 1931.

[17][1] General Sir Richard McCreery (1898–1967), Chief of Staff to Field Marshal Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, at the time of the Second Battle of El Alamein and later commanded the British Eighth Army in Northern Italy during 1944–45, died in Templecombe.