Tyneham, Dorset
Historical Description
Tyneham, a parish in Dorset, on the coast, 7 miles SW by S of Wareham station on the L. & S.W.R. It has a post office under Wareham; money order office, Wareham; telegraph office, Creech. Acreage, 2981; population of the civil parish, 260; of the ecclesiastical, 574. An alien priory, a cell to Bee Abbey in France, stood at Povington, and was given to the Dean and Chapter of Westminster. The living is a rectory annexed to Steeple in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £185 with residence. The church has been restored and enlarged, and contains five mural monuments. There are several interesting barrows in the neighbourhood, and there is a coastguard station at Worbarrow Bay and a lifeboat at Sharnel.
Administration
The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.
Ancient County | Dorsetshire | |
Diocese | Bristol | 1542 - 1836 |
Diocese | Salisbury | 1836 - |
Ecclesiastical parish | Tyneham St. Mary | |
Poor Law union | Wareham and Purbeck | 1836 - |
Registration district | Wareham | |
Registration sub-district | Wareham |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1654. The original register books are now deposited with the Dorset Archives Service, but have been digitised by Ancestry.co.uk and made available on their site (subscription required).
Churches
Church of England
St. Mary (parish church)
The parish church of St. Mary is a small cruciform edifice of stone, in the Early English and Decorated styles, and consists of chancel, nave, aisles, transepts, west porch, and a central bell-cot containing 2 bells: the north transept was a chantry chapel, belonging to the manor house; the south transept is modern: there are three monuments of Caen stone, to the Rev. William Bond, formerly rector of Steeple with Tyneham, and canon of Bristol; to William Bond esq. metropolitan police magistrate and recorder of Poole and Wareham, and to the Rev. Henry Bond, vicar of South Petherton and Thomas Bond esq. barrister at law: there is also an ancient monument with eleven shields of arms to Henry Williams, son of John Williams, of Herington, d. 1641: devine service was formerly performed in this parish only once on each Sunday in the year, and on Ash Wednesday, Good Friday, and Christmas Day: in 1848 the Rev. William Bond, considering the increase of the population, gave the sum of £1,700 to the governors of Queen Anne's Bounty upon trust to pay the dividends half yearly to the rector of Tyneham, upon condition of his performing two full services, with a sermon, every Sunday and also on Good Friday and Christmas Day: there are 300 sittings.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Tyneham was in Wareham Registration District from 1837 to 1937 and Poole Registration District from 1937 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Tyneham from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Tyneham (St. Mary))
- Hunt & Co.'s Directory of Dorsetshire, Hampshire, & Wiltshire 1851
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Dorset is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Tyneham are available from a number of sites:
- Bing (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- Google Streetview.
- National Library of Scotland. (Old maps)
- OpenStreetMap.
- old-maps.co.uk (Old Ordnance Survey maps to buy).
- Streetmap.co.uk (Current Ordnance Survey maps).
- A Vision of Britain through Time. (Old maps)
Newspapers and Periodicals
The British Newspaper Archive have fully searchable digitised copies of the Dorset County Chronicle and the Sherborne Mercury online.
Visitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Dorset, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.