Frampton, Dorset

Historical Description

Frampton, a village, a parish, and a liberty in Dorsetshire. The village stands on the river Froom, 1 mile from Grimston station on the G.W.R., and 5½ miles NW by W of Dorchester, was known at Domesday as Frantone, was once a market-town, and has a fine bridge over the Froom, and a post office under Dorchester; money order and telegraph office, Maiden Newton. The parish contains also the hamlets of Mageston and Southover. Acreage, 3295; population of the civil parish, 387; of the ecclesiastical, 391. A priory of black monks, a cell to the abbey of St Stephen at Caen in Normandy, stood on the site of Frampton Court, and was given to the Haltons. The parish is a resort of sportsmen. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £135 with residence. The church was built in the time of Edward IV., has an ancient stone pulpit, and is good.

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 1627. 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 the Virgin (parish church)

The parish church of St. Mary the virgin, built in the reign of Edward IV. is an edifice of stone, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, south porch, and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles and containing 6 bells: the tower was erected in 1695, by Robert Browne esq, who afterward, added the vestry and north aisle: there are several stained windows, including one in the north aisle, erected by Helen Lady Dufferin to the memory of her mother, and others to Lieut. R. B. Sheridan, 19th Lancers, d. 1901, and to the Hon. John Lothrop Motley LL.D, historian and diplomatist, who died at Kingston Russell, 29 May, 1877, and to Mary Elizabeth Motley: there are also monumental tablets to the Browne family and to Major-Gen. Sir Colquhoun Grant K.C.B. d. 1835: the church was restored and partly rebuilt and enlarged in 1820, and affords 400 sittings.

St. Mary the Virgin, Frampton

St. Mary the Virgin, Frampton

Civil Registration

Frampton was in Dorchester Registration District from 1837 to 1949 and Weymouth Registration District from 1949 to 1974

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Frampton from the following:

• 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 Frampton 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.