Broadway, Dorset
Historical Description
Broadway, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands on the river Wey, and has a station on the G.W.R., 140 miles from London, and 2½ N by W of Weymouth. The parish includes also Little Moor hamlet and part of Nottingham hamlet. It has a post and money order office under Dorchester; telegraph office, Upway. Acreage, 1051; population, 774. The living is a rectory, annexed to the rectory of Bincombe, in the diocese of Salisbury; gross. united value, £337 with residence. Patrons, the Master and Fellows of Caius College, Cambridge. The church is good, and was restored in 1874. A temperance hall was erected in 1879, with 120 sittings and reading and coffee rooms attached. There is also a small Wesleyan chapel.
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 | Broadway St. Nicholas | |
| Hundred | Culliford Tree | |
| Poor Law union | Weymouth | 1836 - |
| Registration district | Weymouth | |
| Registration sub-district | Upway |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register of baptisms, marriages and burials begins in 1661. 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. Nicholas (parish church)
The parish church of St. Nicholas is an edifice of stone, chiefly in the Decorated style, and consists of chancel with aisle, clerestoried nave, north aisle, south porch and a western turret containing 2 bells: the doorways and fonts are Norman, and the oak pulpit Elizabethan: the church was enlarged in 1874 by the addition of a chancel aisle, and in 1902 a south aisle was added and a new organ erected; there are now sittings for 405 persons: in the churchyard is a monument containing two portrait medallions by the celebrated sculptor F.C. Bunyard esq. in memory of his daughter and brother-in-law.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Broadway was in Weymouth Registration District from 1837 to 1933
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Broadway from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Broadway (St. Nicholas))
- 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 Broadway 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.
Villages, Hamlets, &c
Little MoorVisitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Dorset, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.