Description
Gussage St Michael, a parish in Dorsetshire, 5 miles W by S of Cranborne, and 6 1/2 from Verwood station on the L. & S.W.R. Post town, Salisbury; money order and telegraph office, Wimbome St Giles. Acreage, 2461; population of the civil parish, 229; of the ecclesiastical, 298. There are extensive ancient earthworks. The Roman road. Via Iceniana, divides this parish from Gussage All Saints. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £280 with residence. Patron, Viscount Portman. The church is Transition Norman, and has a Saxon tower, arch, and embattled tower. There is a Wesleyan chapel. In 1888, General Pitt Rivers discovered a Romano-British settlement at East Wood-yates, which is believed by archaeologists to be the site of the Roman station of Vindogladia. On Oakley Down, in the parish of Handley, is Worbarrow, a long barrow of the stone age, opened hy General Pitt Rivers in 1894.
Parish Church
The church of St. Michael is a very ancient building of stone and flint, in the Transition Norman style, consisting of chancel, with north chapel, nave, aisles, north porch and an embattled tower at the west end, containing 5 bells, the tenor bell was recast in 1896; the windows are filled with stained glass; a memorial reredos was erected in 1870 to the late Rev. G. Dewdney, a former rector: the chancel was rebuilt under the superintendence of the late G. E. Street esq. R.A., and the church was restored in 1895 at a cost of about £1,000, under the direction of Mr. C. M. P. Ponting, architect, when a new vestry and an oak screen and pulpit were provided; there are 150 sittings: in the churchyard is a remarkably fine yew tree.
The register dates from the year 1653.
