Description
Winterborne Abbas, a parish, with a village, in Dorsetshire, 3 1/4 miles from Portisham station on the G.W.R. It has a post and money order office under Dorchester; telegraph office, Little Bredy. Acreage, 1514; population of the civil parish, 207; of the ecclesiastical, 347. There are a Druidical circle and numerous barrows. The name Winterborne arose to this parish and to others from the periodicity of streams, issuing from chalk formations, disappearing in summer, and flowing copiously in winter. The living is a rectory, united with Winterborne Steepleton, in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £320 with residence. Patron, Lincoln College, Oxford. The church is a small building of stone in the Perpendicular style. There is a Baptist chapel. Bishop Ironside was rector.
Parish Church
The church of St. Mary is a small building of stone, in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave, north porch and an embattled western tower with turret, containing 3 bells, on one of which is an impression, stamped from the die of a coin of the Plantagenet period: the chancel arch is Early English: there are about 130 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1791.
