Hermitage, Dorset

Historical Description

Hermitage, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands 2 miles NE of Evershot station on the G.W.R., and 4 N by W of Cerne Abbas. Post town, Cerne, under Dorchester; money order and telegraph office, Evershot. Acreage, 756; population, 115. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £20. Patron, the Lord Chancellor. The church is good, and has a bell-turret; it was restored in 1889.

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 1712. 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 is a very small Gothic edifice, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and a western turret containing one bell: the church was reseated throughout in 1889, and affords 120 sittings.

Civil Registration

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

Hermitage was in Cerne Registration District from 1837 to 1838, Dorchester Registration District from 1838 to 1937, and Sturminster Registration District from 1937 to 1974

Directories & Gazetteers

We have transcribed the entry for Hermitage from the following:

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