[1] Approximately half of the population of the parish live in the village of Thorncombe, the rest are divided between the hamlets of Holditch, Hewood and Synderford, and outlying farms and houses.

Chard Street is probably the busiest road with the Village Hall, St Mary's Primary School and the housing estates of Gribb View and Tansee Hill.

Fore Street heads to the east towards Venn and is a more traditional looking part of the village with flint-faced cottages and terraced housing down its length.

To the east, across the valley of the River Synderford, is the ridge of Blackdown Hill, traversed by the Jubilee Trail, from which there are extensive views of the village and the area.

The building of the church, as well as nearby Forde Abbey (founded in 1136), was superintended by Cistercian monks from Waverley, Surrey.

John Bragge, Vicar of Thorncombe from 1644 to 1647, was deprived of his living, probably because he was involved in a royalist plot against Cromwell, and was transported to Barbados.

During the 18th century there was a weekly market selling 'grain and meat' and serving 'other wants'[5] and an annual Easter fair where 'sheep and other horned cattle' and locally woven 'narrow cloth' were traded.

Following the national decline in small scale weaving during the 19th century due to industrialisation, Thorncombe reverted to agriculture, but this has decreased in recent times.

Famous past inhabitants of Thorncombe include the Puritan Sir Henry Rosewell; the poet, dramatist and Royalist sermoniser Robert Gomersall; the Commonwealth Attorney General, Edmund Prideaux; Queen Anne's Secretary of War Francis Gwyn; the artist Lucien Pissarro; the ethnologist Sir Raymond Firth; the anthropologist Rosemary, Lady Firth; and the art-historian Cecil Gould.

Until 1844, the parish of Thorncombe was an exclave of Devon, at which time it was transferred under the Counties (Detached Parts) Act 1844, to Dorset.

In 2006 Thorncombe together with Winsham was linked with Tatworth, Chaffcombe and Cricket Malherbie with Knowle St Giles to form the Two Shires Benefice.

[8] After 2019 structural changes to local government in England, Thorncombe is part of the Marshwood Vale ward which elects one member to Dorset Council.