Description
Charminster, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands on a branch of the river Froom, adjacent to the G.W.R., 2 miles NNW of Dorchester station. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Dorchester. Acreage, 4395; population of the civil parish, 1450; of the ecclesiastical, 1775. The parish contains also the hamlets of Burton and Forston, and the county lunatic asylum. There is a Working Men's Club and Institute. The living is a vicarage, united with the vicarage of Stratton, in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £300, in the gift of the Bishop of Salisbury. The church is very good. There are Wesleyan and Free Reformed Methodist chapels. Wolfeton House is the chief residence.
Parish Church
The church of St. Mary, built in the latter part of the 12th century, is a stone edifice, consisting of chancel, nave, aisles, divided from the nave by massive Norman arches, south porch, and an embattled western tower, with pinnacles, containing a clock and 5 bells: the tower was built by Sir Thomas Trenchard, of Wolfeton, about 1500: there are monuments with elaborate carvings, probably to members of the Trenchard family: the church was restored in 1896, when four small Norman windows were discovered in the clerestory, and the west window filled with stained glass, by Captain and Mrs Dymond, as a memorial to their son: the church affords 500 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1561.
Villages, Hamlets, &c.
Forston, a hamlet in Charminster parish, Dorsetshire, 3 1/2 miles NNW of Dorchester.
