Wool, Dorset
Historical Description
Wool, a parish, with three hamlets, in Dorsetshire, on the river Frome, with a station on the L. & S.W.R., 125 miles from London, and 5½ W by S of Wareham. It has a fair on 14 May, and a post, money order, and telegraph office under Wareham. Acreage, 2587; population, 621. There is a parish council consisting of six members. A Cistercian abbey was founded at Great Bindon in 1172 by R. de Newburgh. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £120 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Salisbury. The church is a building of stone in the Late Perpendicular style, with an embattled tower. There are Wesleyan and Roman Catholic chapels.
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 - |
| Ecclesiastical parish | Wool Holy Rood | |
| Liberty | Bindon | |
| Poor Law union | Wareham and Purbeck | 1836 - |
| Registration district | Wareham | |
| Registration sub-district | Wareham |
Any dates in this table should be used as a guide only.
Church Records
The register of baptisms dates from 1585, burials from 1586, and of marriages from 1583. 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
The Holy Rood (parish church)
The parish church of the Holy Rood is a building of stone, chiefly in the Late Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, and an embattled western tower containing 4 bells, re-hung and two new bells added in 1907 at a cost of £240: a piece of very ancient tapestry, at one time used here as a pulpit cloth, is now deposited in the museum at Dorchester: there is also an ancient stone cresset, with four cups, dating from the 12th century, in very good preservation: there are 270 sittings.
Civil Registration
Wool was in Wareham Registration District from 1837 to 1937 and Poole Registration District from 1937 to 1974
Directories & Gazetteers
We have transcribed the entry for Wool from the following:
- Samuel Lewis' A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858. (Wool (Holy Rood))
Land and Property
The Return of Owners of Land in 1873 for Dorset is available to browse.
Maps
Online maps of Wool 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
BindonVisitations Heraldic
The Visitation of Dorset, 1623 is available on the Heraldry page.