Morden, Dorset

Historical Description

Morden, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands 3½ miles SW of Bailey Gate station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway, and 5½ N by E of Wareham. It has a post office under Wareham; money order and telegraph office, Wareham. Acreage of the parish, 7512; population, 730, The parish council consists of seven members. The manor, with Charborough Park, belongs to the Erle-Drax family. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £250. The church of St Mary was erected on the site of the old one in 1873, and contains monuments to the Erle family. There is a Wesleyan chapel.

Transcribed from The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5

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 -
Poor Law union	Wareham and Purbeck	1836 -
Registration district	Wareham
Registration sub-district	Bere Regis

Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.

Church Records

The register dates from the year 1575. 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 on the old site in 1873, at the sole cost of the late Miss Drax, comprises chancel, nave, aisles, south porch, and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 5 bells; there are two monuments to the Erle family, dated 1597; the stained east window was presented by the late J.S.W. Sawbridge-Erle-Drax esq.; the church affords 220 sittings.

Civil Registration

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

Morden was in Wareham Registration District from 1837 to 1937 and Poole Registration District from 1937 to 1974

Land and Property

The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Dorset is available to browse.

Maps

Online maps of Morden 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

Charborough
Sandford
Sherford

Visitations Heraldic

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