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November, 2013:

Tincleton – The Parish Church of St.John

Nov 25th, 2013
by Dorset Ancestors.
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The Victorians’ passion for restoring churches is well known. At Tincleton they went further and completely demolished the standing church to start all over again.

St. John’s was built in 1849 and designed by Benjamin Ferry an eminent Victorian architect; he was employed on projects throughout the country and he strode across Dorset’s ecclesiastical landscape, working on at least ten churches in the county.

Ferrey was also responsible for work on several of Dorset’s private houses. St. John’s Church was not his first work in the parish of Tincleton; seven years earlier he designed, in 16th century style, Clyffe House located just a few hundred yards from the parish church.

The present church has walls of squared and coursed rubble, dressings of Ham Hill ashlar and the roof is tiled. Designed in 13th century style it comprises chancel, nave, a south chapel and vestry, and a north porch. The east wall to left and right of the reredos (1889), which is of alabaster and delicately cut, has stone arcading.

Above the west gable is a bell-cote, home to two bells. The smaller of the two bells was cast at the Whitechapel foundry in 1849 but little is known about the other except to say that it may have survived the demolition of the earlier church.

The church benefits from fittings handed down from the earlier building, including the font. It is of Purbeck stone, with course reeding in two heights between rounded top and bottom mouldings, originally 12th century, but reshaped in modern times; the stem and base are modern.

There are monuments inside the church to members of the Baynard family. The earliest is to Rachel Baynard (1667) the wife of Thomas Baynard and daughter of Thomas Moore of Hattesbury. There is a well-worn stone slab in the nave, near the chancel steps, to Thomas Baynard (1683) and another to Radolphus Baynard (1695). On the north wall of the nave is a marble tablet to George Baynard (1693). The south wall of the nave has a marble tablet to Mary White (1718), daughter of George and Elizabeth Baynard and wife of George White of Stafford. In the chancel there are more recent monuments to Anne Seymour (1844), Rev. Thomas Seymour (1849) and Jane Seymour (1850).

Tincleton whose population is thinly spread across its 900 or so acres lies to the south of Puddletown and north of the River Frome, it is approached by narrow secondary roads.

The Manor of Shillingstone

Nov 11th, 2013
by Dorset Ancestors.
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In the valley separating Hambledon Hill from the eastern escarpment of the Dorset Central Downs is the village of Shillingstone, situated on the Sturminster to Blandford road. Domesday Book records it in the Hundred of Hunesburg, later it transferred to the Hundred of Cranborne.
 
At the end of the Saxon period the Manor belonged to Harold as Count of Dorset.  Fighting as King Harold II in 1066 he died in battle at Senlac, defeated by William the Bastard of Normandy who is remembered today as William the Conqueror. William granted the manor to one of his supporters, a man named Schelin or Eschellings in whose family it remained for several generations before passing through marriage to the Turbervilles.

In 1303 Sir Brian Turberville granted to Walter de Dyngel, for life, a large acreage of land with some buildings. The arrangement was subject to his celebrating Mass before the altar of the Blessed Mary in Ocford Parish Church, or, if prevented from doing so by infirmity, paying to the poor of the parish ten shillings at the Feast of St. Michael and five shillings at the Annunciation. The Mass was to be said for “the health of his soul, and of Isabel, his wife, Joan formerly his wife, Robert Turberville his father, Sibila his mother, and Viviana and others of his ancestors.” In 1405 Richard Turberville confirmed to John Corston, rector a moiety of the church, the land, woods and meadows, pastures etc, formerly held by William Fithing as rector.

The manor passed from the Turbevilles to the Haseldenes, an Essex family and in 1565 Francis Haseldene sold the manor to Thomas Brooksby. Forty years later in 1603 Bartholomew Brooksby was involved in a conspiracy to overthrow James I and put Arbella Stuart on the Throne. The plot failed and Brooksby saw his lands confiscated; he was then outlawed. For a while before 1592 Arbella Stuart had been considered a candidate to succeed  Queen Elizabeth I but the influential Cecil family and others decided James would be a better choice.

Sir Edward Coke, a lawyer, purchased the manor in 1604 and his descendants owned it until 1759, when it was acquired by Julines Beckford of Steepleton Iwerne, who had interests in Jamaica. It descended to Lord Rivers and was later acquired by Viscount Portman.