Chettle, Dorset
Historical Description
Chettle, a parish in Dorsetshire, 6½ miles NE of Blandford station on the Somerset and Dorset railway. It has a post office under Blandford; money order and telegraph office, Tarrant Gunville. Acreage, 1126; population, 121. Chettle House was built by Vanbrugh. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £135. The church is a flint structure of 1849, with the tower of a previous edifice.
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 | Chettle St. Mary | |
| Hundred | Mockton-up-Wimborne | |
| Poor Law union | Cranborne | 1835 - 1836 |
| Poor Law union | Wimborne and Cranborne | 1836 - 1894 |
| Poor Law union | Blandford | 1894 - |
| Registration district | Blandford | |
| Registration sub-district | Blandford |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register of baptisms, marriages and burials begins in 1539. 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, a building of flint and stone, was rebuilt, with the exception of the tower, in 1850, in the Perpendicular style, at the sole expense of the late E. Castleman esq. and consists of chancel, nave, transepts and an embattled western tower containing 3 bells: there are two stained windows: the church has sittings for 80 persons.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
Chettle was in Wimborne Registration District from 1837 to 1895, Blandford Registration District from 1895 to 1956, and Poole Registration District from 1956 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Chettle from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Chettle (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 Chettle 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
Bellows CrossVisitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Dorset, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.