Cheselborne

From Kelly’s Dorsetshire Directory 1915: “CHESILBORNE (or Cheselbourne) is a parish and small village, 8 miles north-east from Dorchester station, on the Great Western and London and South Western railway, 8 north-west from Bere Regis, and 11 south-west from Blandford, in the Western division of the county, Whiteway hundred, Cerne petty sessional division and union, Dorchester county court district, rural deanery of Whitchurch (Bere Regis portion), archdeaconry of Dorset and diocese of Salisbury. The church of St. Martin is an ancient edifice of flint and stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, north and south porches and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing 5 bells: it was restored in 1875, and has 200 sittings. The register dates from the year 1560.

The church plate consists of an Elizabethan cup with cover, dated 1574, and two patens, the larger of 18th century date, and the smaller the gift in 1910 of the Rev. T. O. Marshall B.A. of Teddington, Middlesex. The living is a rectory, net income £290, including 44 acres of glebe and residence, in the gift of A. E. L. Fox-Pitt-Rivers esq. and held since 1913 by the Rev. Frederick Sheriff Beale M.A. of Durham University. Here is a Primitive Methodist chapel, erected in 1866. A. E. L. Fox-Pitt-Rivers esq. is lord of the manor and the principal landowner. The soil is a thin loam on chalk. The chief crops are wheat, oats, barley, and some land in pasture. The area is 3,031 acres; rateable value, £1,451; the population in 1911 was 233. in the civil and 219 in the ecclesiastical parish.

Photographs by Caryl Parsons ©

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