West Parley, Dorset
Historical Description
Parley, West, a parish in Dorsetshire, on the river Stour, contiguous to Hants, 3 miles from Herne station on the L. & S.W.R. Post town and telegraph office, Wimborne; money order office, Long Ham. Acreage, 3959; population of the civil parish, 334; of the ecclesiastical, 129. There is a parish council consisting of seven members. A large portion of the parish is heath. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; gross value, £190. The church is ancient.
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 - |
| Hundred | Cranborne | |
| Poor Law union | Wimborne | 1835 - 1836 |
| Registration district | Wimborne | |
| Registration sub-district | Wimborne |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The parish register dates from the year 1715. 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
All Saints (parish church)
The parish church of All Saints is a very small Norman building of stone with traces of Saxon; it consists of chancel, nave, north porch, and a western turret, containing one bell: at the east of the church, beneath a circular stone, was buried the heart of the Lady of Lydlinch, who endowed the church, but on the rebuilding of the chancel in 1896 the urn containing the heart was removed from under the stone and placed on the top of it, where it now stands.
Civil Registration
For general information about Civil Registration (births, marriages and deaths) see the Civil Registration page.
West Parley was in Wimborne Registration District from 1837 to 1937, Blandford Registration District from 1937 to 1956, and Poole Registration District from 1956 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for West Parley from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Parley, West)
- 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 West Parley 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.