Chideock, Dorset

Historical Description

Chideock, a parish in Dorsetshire, on the coast, 3 miles W of Bridport station on the G.W.R., under which it has a post office. Acreage, 1978 of land, and 27 of tidal water and foreshore; population, 633. The moat of Chideock Castle, erected in 1379, may still he seen. A Roman road crosses the parish westwards, and a streamlet traverses a deep valley southward to the sea, near Down Cliffs. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £166 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Salisbury. The church is good. It was thoroughly restored in 1880, and in 1883 a new chancel was built. There is a recumbent effigy on a black marble tomb. There are Wesleyan and Roman Catholic chapels.

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 parish register of baptisms, marriages and burials begins in 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).

The Phillimore transcript of Marriages at Chideock, 1654-1812 is online.

Churches

Church of England

St. Giles (parish church)

The parish church of St Giles is an ancient building of stone, mainly in the Perpendicular style, with traces of earlier work, and consists of chancel, nave, south aisle, south porch, north transeptal chapel and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 5 bells, dating from 1603; a new clock was provided in 1897: the font has a shallow octagonal bowl, supported on a panelled stem: at the east end of the south aisle is an altar tomb of dark marble, on which rests the figure of a knight in plate armour, perhaps representing Sir John Arundell: in the north transept are three memorial tablets, to William Fitzherbert of this parish, gent. dated 1761; Simeon Bullen esq. 1822, and John Bullen esq. 1852: the organ was erected in 1893, at a cost of £190: there are five stained windows: in 1880 the church underwent a thorough restoration, under the superintendence of Mr. G.R. Crickmay, architect, of Weymouth, at a total cost of about £1,100; during the course of the work a rude painting was discovered on the north wall: in 1883 a new chancel was built, at a cost of £600, from designs by Mr. G.R. Crickmay: the church affords 270 sittings.

North of the church, and separated by a wall from the churchyard, is the Catholic cemetery, which has a small cruciform mortuary chapel: the interior is adorned with mural paintings, and on the west wall facing the gate is a representation of the "Crucifixion," the work of Mr. Charles Weld.

Civil Registration

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

Chideock was in Bridport Registration District from 1837 to 1974

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Chideock from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Chideock (St. Giles))
• Kelly's Directory of Dorset, 1889
• 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 Chideock 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.