Melbury Osmond, Dorset

Historical Description

Melbury Osmond, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands 2¼ miles NNW of Evershot station on the G.W.R., and 6¾ SW by S of Sherborne, and has a post and money order office under Dorchester; telegraph office, Evershot. Acreage of the civil parish, 1222; population, 338; of the ecclesiastical, 495. The manor belongs to the Earl of Ilchester. The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Melbury Sampford and Stockwood, in the diocese of Salisbury; gross value, £340 with residence. Patron,. The Earl of Ilchester. The church is an ancient structure with a tower, and was restored in 1888.

Administration

The following is a list of the administrative units in which this place was either wholly or partly included.

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

The register dates from the year 1750. 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. Osmond (parish church)

The parish church, named in honour of St. Osmond, one of the earliest bishops of Sarum, is an ancient edifice of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and an embattled tower containing 5 bells: the church was restored in 1888 by the 5th Earl of Ilchester, the late Sir Arthur Blomfield being the architect: a beautiful Gothic arch was discovered during the restoration, which had been built up, the head being cut away for a doorway into the west gallery: on removing the gallery and taking down the steps leading to it from the outside, a Norman font of Ham Hill stone was discovered built into the masonry, and in good preservation; the font was replaced in the position it occupied a century and a half before, a portion of the arch having been obviously cut out for it to fit in: the chancel was lengthened in 1910 at the cost of the rector, the Rev. Herbert Foley Napier: there are 175 sittings.

St. Osmond, Melbury Osmond

St. Osmond, Melbury Osmond

Civil Registration

For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.

Melbury Osmond was in Beaminster Registration District from 1837 to 1937 and Bridport Registration District from 1937 to 1974

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Melbury Osmond from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Melbury-Osmond (St. Osmond))
• 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 Melbury Osmond 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.