Yetminster

St Andrew's Yetminster

Yetminster is a parish 6 miles south of Sherborne. The church of St Andrew's is built in the perpendicular style, contains five bells and has a 300 year old faceless clock which which chimes the National anthem several times a day, the chimes were installed to celebrate Queen victoria's Jubilee. The village is situated on the River Wriggle and almost everything in the centre of the village is built from a plae yellowy local limestone. Edward Jenner is renowned as the "father of the smallpox vaccination" yet 20 years before in 1774 during an outbreak of smallpox, a Yetminster farmer,

Benjamin Jesty recollected the old  tradition that dairymaids who had contracted the much milder cowpox didn't seem to catch smallpox.Quite by chance there was an outbreak of cowpox in nearby Chetnole. Bejamin went along to the farm and proceeded to vaccinate his wife and two boys by scratching their arms and introducing pus from the udder of an infected cow. The cowpox ran its course and the boys came through easily with just mild fevers, his wife was quite ill but eventually recovered. Unfortunately the villagers ridiculed Benjamin and the family eventually moved to Worth Matravers.