Sherborne, Gloucestershire

Manor and church

Coenwulf of Mercia, who reigned from AD 796 to 821, is credited with giving the manor of Sherborne to Winchcombe Abbey. The Domesday Book records that the abbey held Sherborne in 1086. Edward I stayed in Sherborne in 1382. In 1539 the abbey was suppressed in the dissolution of the monasteries and the Crown took its lands.

Sherborne had a parish church by 1175, when it was listed amongst the property of Winchcombe Abbey. said to have been recovered from an orchard at the same end of the village.

The present Church of England parish church of Saint Mary Magdalene is in the centre of the village. Its bell-tower and spire were built late in the 13th or early in the 14th century. The church is next to Sherborne House, which was built for Thomas Dutton after he bought the manor of Sherborne in 1551. Elizabeth I stayed at the house in 1592. and James Dutton, 1st Baron Sherborne had alterations made to the church between 1743 and 1776, including the addition of a Doric portico. The oldest is medieval; three more were cast in 1653 and the remaining two are 18th-century.

In 1624–40 John Dutton acquired land 2 mi southwest of the village to create a deer park. The National Trust now owns the Lodge Park and Sherborne Estate. Sherborne House is converted into privately owned apartments and is not open to the public.

Economic and social history

In 1086 the village had four watermills on Sherborne Brook. By the end of the 19th century only Duckleston Mill, at the west end of the village, remained, and it was disused. In 1961 it was still standing but had been converted into a farmhouse.

The Astronomer Royal James Bradley was born in Sherborne in 1693.

More than half of the parish was farmed under an open field system until 1777, when the common lands were enclosed.

The farmhouse at Stones Farm at the east end of Sherborne village was designed by Richard Pace and built in 1818.

The 2nd Baron Sherborne established two schools for boys in 1824. They were merged in 1862, and a schoolhouse was built for them in 1868.

Until the 1880s Sherborne was noted as a centre of Morris dancing.

Sherborne still has a village shop and tea room which incorporates an outreach Post Office.

Sources

References

References

1. "Parish population 2011".
2. "Location of North Cotswolds". Parliament of the United Kingdom.
3. Eilert Ekwall, ''Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-names'', p.416.
4. Elrington, 1964, pages 120-127
5. The original church building no longer exists, but a 19th-century cottage at the east end of the village incorporates two [[Norman architecture
6. Verey, 1970, page 394
7. Verey, 1970, page 395
8. "Lodge Park and Sherborne Park Estate".
9. "Home".