Winterborne Kingston, Dorset

Historical Description

Winterborne Kingston, a parish in Dorsetshire, 4½ miles SW of Spetisbury station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway, and 6 SSW of Blandford. It has a post office under Blandford; money order and telegraph office, Whitechurch. Acreage, 2559; population, 500. There is a parish council consisting of seven members. The living is a perpetual curacy, annexed to Bere Regis. The church is a building of flint and stone in the Early English style. There are Wesleyan and Congregational chapels.

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 register begins in 1598, but is imperfect between the years 1599 and 1613 and between 1675 and 1696. 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. Nicholas (parish church)

The parish church of St. Nicholas is an ancient edifice of stone and flint, in the Early English style, consisting of chancel, nave, north aisle and an embattled western tower containing 4 bells: it was restored in 1873, from the designs of the late G. E. Street R.A. when the north aisle and a memorial window to Mrs. Michel were added: there are also two stained windows to the Besent family: the church has sittings for 298 persons.

Civil Registration

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

Winterborne Kingston was in Blandford Registration District from 1837 to 1956 and Poole Registration District from 1956 to 1974

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Winterborne Kingston 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.