Description
Stoke, East, a parish, with West holme tithing, in Dorsetshire, on the river Frome, 2 1/4 miles E of Wool station on the L. & S.W.R., and 3 1/4 W by S of Wareham. It has a post office under Wareham; money order and telegraph office, Wool. Acreage, 4691; population of the civil parish, 499; of the ecclesiastical, 581. Hethfelton and Binnegar Hall are the chief residences. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £206 with residence. The church was rebuilt in 1830 and restored in 1885.
Parish Church
The church of St. Mary, erected in 1828, is of stone, in the Perpendicular style, and consists of chancel, nave and an embattled western tower, containing 2 bells; in the south porch is placed a marble tablet to the Rev. William Buller, sometime curate of the parish, and of Leonora Sophia, his wife: the chancel and organ chamber were built and the church reseated in 1885, at a cost of £1,056; in the chancel are memorial windows to the Fyler family of Hethfelton, and to the Rev. Charles Fox, a former rector; the font, which belonged to the old church, has a hexagonal basin and was reset on a new shafted base by the Rev. Octavius Arthur Hodgson M.A. rector here 1874-98: there are 250 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1743.
Villages, Hamlets, &c.
Holme, West, a tithing in East Stoke parish, Dorsetshire, 3 miles WSW of Wareham.
