Sherborne, Gloucestershire

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Sherborne
Gloucestershire

Sherborne House
Location
Grid reference: SP177145
Location: 51°49’44"N, 1°44’38"W
Data
Population: 309  (2011)
Post town: Cheltenham
Postcode: GL54
Dialling code: 01451
Local Government
Council: Cotswold

Sherborne is a little Cotswold village in Gloucestershire sitting about three and a half miles east of Northleach. Sherborne is a linear village, extending more than a mile along the valley of Sherborne Brook, a tributary of the River Windrush.

The place-name 'Sherborne' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it is spelled 'Scireburne', and means 'bright stream'.[1] This is a reference to Sherborne Brook.

The manor today belongs to the National Trust,[2] though the manor house is converted to apartments.

Sherborne has an attractive Village shop and Tea Room,[3] which incorporates an outreach Post Office.

Manor and church

Entrance to Sherborne

Coenwulf King of the Mercians, who reigned from AD 796 to 821, is credited with giving the manor of Sherborne to Winchcombe Abbey. The Domesday Book records that the abbey held Sherborne in 1086.[4]

King Edward I stayed in Sherborne in 1382.[4] In 1539 the abbey was suppressed in the Dissolution of the Monasteries and the Crown took its lands.

Sherborne had a parish church by 1175, when it was listed amongst the property of Winchcombe Abbey.[4] The original church building no longer exists, but a 19th-century cottage at the east end of the village incorporates two Norman doorways and other details[5] said to have been recovered from an orchard at the same end of the village.</ref>[4]

The present Church of England parish church, St Mary Magdalene is in the centre of the village. Its bell-tower and spire were built late in the 13th or early in the 14th century.[5]

The church is next to Sherborne House, which was built for Thomas Dutton after he bought the manor of Sherborne in 1551.[5] Queen Elizabeth I stayed at the house in 1592.[4] John Dutton had the house re-faced in 1651-53,[5] and James Dutton, 1st Baron Sherborne had alterations made to the church between 1743 and 1776, including the addition of a Doric portico.[4] In 1850-59 John Baron Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne had the mediæval nave and aisle of the church demolished to allow more light into Sherborne House, and had a new nave and sanctuary built further north.[4][5] The church contains numerous ornate monuments to members of the Dutton family.[4][5] The tower has ring of six bells.[6] The oldest is mediæval; three more were cast in 1653 and the remaining two are 18th-century.[4]

In 1624-40 John Dutton acquired land two miles south-west of the village to create a deer park.[4] He had The Lodge built as a viewing stand to watch deer being coursed by greyhounds.[5] In 1898 it was extended for Susan, Lady Sherborne and converted into a house.[5]

The National Trust now owns the Lodge Park and Sherborne Estate.[2]

Sherborne House is converted into privately owned apartments and is not open to the public.

Economic and social history

In 1086 the village had four watermills on Sherborne Brook. By the end of the 19th century only Duckleston Mill, at the west end of the village, remained, and it was disused. In 1961 it was still standing but had been converted into a farmhouse.[4]

The Astronomer Royal James Bradley was born in Sherborne[4] in 1693.

More than half of the parish was farmed under an open field system until 1777, when the common lands were enclosed.[4]

The farmhouse at Stones Farm at the east end of Sherborne village was designed by Richard Pace and built in 1818.[5]

The 2nd Baron Sherborne established two schools for boys in 1824. They were merged in 1862, and a schoolhouse was built for them in 1868. By 1906 it had been enlarged to take 165 pupils, but by 1938 attendance had fallen to 80. By 1961 it was a junior school.[4] It is now a Church of England primary school.[7]

Until the 1880s Sherborne was noted as a centre of Morris dancing.[4]

Outside links

("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Sherborne, Gloucestershire)

References

  1. Ekwall, Eilert, The Concise Oxford Dictionary of English Place-Names. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 4th edition, 1960. p. 416 ISBN 0198691033
  2. 2.0 2.1 Lodge Park and Sherborne Park Estate
  3. [1]
  4. 4.00 4.01 4.02 4.03 4.04 4.05 4.06 4.07 4.08 4.09 4.10 4.11 4.12 4.13 4.14 A History of the County of Gloucester - Volume 6 pp 120–127: Elrington (Victoria County History)
  5. 5.0 5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5 5.6 5.7 5.8 Nikolaus Pevsner: Pevsner Architectural Guides
  6. The Gloucester & Bristol Diocesan Association of Church Bell Ringers, Cirencester Branch
  7. Sherborne Church of England Primary School