Description
Melbury Osmond, a village and a parish in Dorsetshire. The village stands 2 1/4 miles NNW of Evershot station on the G.W.R., and 6 3/4 SW by S of Sherborne, and has a post and money order office under Dorchester; telegraph office, Evershot. Acreage of the civil parish, 1222; population, 338 ; of the ecclesiastical, 495. The manor belongs to the Earl of Ilchester. The living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Melbury Sampford and Stockwood, in the diocese of Salisbury; gross value, £340 with residence. Patron,. the Earl of Ilchester. The church is an ancient structure with a tower, and was restored in 1888.
Parish Church
The church, named in honour of St. Osmond, one of the earliest bishops of Sarum, is an ancient edifice of stone in the Gothic style, consisting of chancel, nave, south porch and an embattled tower containing 5 bells: the church was restored in 1888 by the 5th Earl of Ilchester, the late Sir Arthur Blomfield being the architect: a beautiful Gothic arch was discovered during the restoration, which had been built up, the head being cut away for a doorway into the west gallery: on removing the gallery and taking down the steps leading to it from the outside, a Norman font of Ham Hill stone was discovered built into the masonry, and in good preservation; the font was replaced in the position it occupied a century and a half before, a portion of the arch having been obviously cut out for it to fit in: the chancel was lengthened in 1910 at the cost of the rector, the Rev. Herbert Foley Napier: there are 175 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1550.
