Winterborne St Martin, Dorset

Historical Description

Winterbourne St Martin, a parish, with Martinstown village and Ashton tithing in Dorsetshire, 3 miles W by S of Dorchester station on the G.W.R. It has a post office of the name of Martinstown, under Dorchester; money order office, Winterbourne Abbas; telegraph office, Dorchester. Acreage, 3546; population, 393. It formerly had a weekly market, and still has a fair on St Martin's Day. Maiden Castle, noticed in our article on Dorchester, is here, and many tumuli are on Four Barrow Hill and Clandon. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £80. The church is dedicated to St Martin.

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 dates from the year 1653. 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. Martin of Tours (parish church)

The parish church of St. Martin is an ancient edifice of stone, in mixed styles, consisting of chancel, nave, south aisle, south porch and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing one bell: two ancient stone shafts are placed on either side of the altar, and there is an ancient Norman font: the eastern end appears to have been rebuilt at a much later period than the remainder of the church: the restoration of the church, commenced in 1896, was completed in 1907: there are 250 sittings.

Civil Registration

Winterborne St. Martin 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 Winterborne St Martin from the following:

• Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Winterbourne (St. Martin))

Land and Property

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

Maps

Online maps of Winterborne St Martin 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.