East Stoke, Dorset
Historical Description
Stoke, East, a parish, with West holme tithing, in Dorsetshire, on the river Frome, 2¼ miles E of Wool station on the L. & S.W.R., and 3¼ W by S of Wareham. It has a post office under Wareham; money order and telegraph office, Wool. Acreage, 4691; population of the civil parish, 499; of the ecclesiastical, 581. Hethfelton and Binnegar Hall are the chief residences. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £206 with residence. The church was rebuilt in 1830 and restored in 1885.
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 | East Stoke St. Mary | |
| Hundred | Winfrith | |
| Poor Law union | Wareham and Purbeck | 1836 - |
| Registration district | Wareham | |
| Registration sub-district | Wareham |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register of baptisms, marriages and burials begins in 1742. 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, erected in 1828, is of stone, in the Perpendicular style, and consists of chancel, nave and an embattled western tower, containing 2 bells; in the south porch is placed a marble tablet to the Rev. William Buller, sometime curate of the parish, and of Leonora Sophia, his wife: the chancel and organ chamber were built and the church reseated in 1885, at a cost of £1,056; in the chancel are memorial windows to the Fyler family of Hethfelton, and to the Rev. Charles Fox, a former rector; the font, which belonged to the old church, has a hexagonal basin and was reset on a new shafted base by the Rev. Octavius Arthur Hodgson M.A. rector here 1874-98: there are 250 sittings.
Civil Registration
East Stoke was in Wareham Registration District from 1837 to 1937 and Poole Registration District from 1937 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for East Stoke from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Stoke, East (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 East Stoke 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
West HolmeVisitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Dorset, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.