Durweston, Dorset

Historical Description

Durweston, a parish in Dorsetshire, on the river Stour, 2 miles from Shilllngstone station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway, and 2½ NW of Blandford-Forum. It includes Knighton, and has a post office under Blandford. Acreage, 1850; population of the civil parish, 472; of the ecclesiastical, 714. The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Bryanston, in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £355 with residence. Patron, Viscount Portman. The church was rebuilt in 1850, after designs by Hardwick, is in the Early English style, and has a tower. There is a news-room and small library.

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 1730. 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 flint and stone in the Transition style, consisting of chancel, nave of five bays, south aisle and south porch, with a square western embattled tower with pinnacles containing 5 bells, one of which was added in 1887, in commemoration of the Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and a clock, erected in 1897, at a cost of £60, to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee: a stone carving to St. Eloi, the patron saint of blacksmiths, was discovered when the old church was pulled down, embedded in the wall hehind the altar, and is now placed over the west porch inside the church entrance; the figures had been mutilated, probably by Cromwell's commissioners : there are 300 sittings.

Civil Registration

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

Durweston was in Blandford Registration District from 1837 to 1956 and Poole Registration District from 1956 to 1974

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Durweston from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Durweston (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 Durweston 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

Visitations Heraldic

The Visitation of Dorset, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.