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The name Fifehead Neville is derived from the Saxon word Fithyde – a hide was originally the amount of land which would support life for a free peasant family, which in Wessex was 48 acres. So Fithyde was a village of 240 acres in the time of the Domesday Book. William de Nevill, who came over from Neuville in Normandy, gave the hamlet the second part of the name.

Foundations of a Roman villa were excavated in a nearby field in 1881 and 1902-1905. You can see artefacts from the site in Sturminster Newton Museum. One of the few surviving medieval packhorse bridges in the country crosses the little river Divelish at the lower end of the hamlet – the river is aptly named since during heavy rain, it can rapidly rise to five feet deep at the ford! The parish church, dedicated to All Saints, dates in part from the 14th century, with later additions.