Shillingstone

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Shillingstone
Dorset
Shillingstone, Gospel Hall and cross - geograph.org.uk - 1318553.jpg
Gospel Hall and cross, Shillingstone
Location
Grid reference: ST825112
Location: 50°54’0"N, 2°15’0"W
Data
Population: 1,170  (2011)
Post town: Blandford Forum
Postcode: DT11
Dialling code: 01258
Local Government
Council: Dorset
Parliamentary
constituency:
North Dorset
Website: http://www.shillingstone.info

Shillingstone is a village in the Blackmore Vale area of north Dorset, on the River Stour between Sturminster Newton and Blandford Forum. The 2011 Census recorded in the civil parish 479 households and a population of 1,170.

South of Shillingstone is a large area of woodland on Okeford and Shillingstone Hill which forms part of Blandford Forest.

History

Shillingstone is listed in the Domesday Book of 1086[1] as a settlement of 46 households, with meadow, woodlands and a mill, under the lordship of Ascelin of Rochester. Its name is a derivation of Eschelling's (or Ascelin's) town.

Shillingstone once had the tallest maypole in Dorset - 86 feet high.[2] An agricultural community, it specialised in the production of moss.[3]

In 1924 the Shillingstone lime works was started to extract lime from the chalk beds at Shillingstone Hill.

Parish church

The parish church of the Holy Rood is a short distance away from the village and is of 12th-century origin, constructed in banded flint and ashlar masonry.[4] It was enlarged in the 15th century and in the 19th century; G. F. Bodley added the north aisle. The font is of the 12th century and the pulpit of the 17th.[5]

The hymn writer Edward Dayman was appointed Rector of Shillingstone in 1842.

About 160 yards south of the church is a mediæval cross base.[6]

Railway station

Shillingstone railway station still survives intact on the former line of the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway, now part of the North Dorset Trailway.[7] The station is one of the best-preserved on the Somerset and Dorset line since the railway's closure in 1966. It opened on Monday 31 August 1863 and closed just over a century later on Sunday 6 March 1966. The station is undergoing extensive restoration by the Shillingstone Station Project, supported by the North Dorset Railway Trust.

The village also had a light railway serving Shillingstone House, the post-war home of Sir Thomas Salt.[8]

Outside links

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("Wikimedia Commons" has material
about Shillingstone)

References

  1. Shillingstone: Domesday Book
  2. Ashley, Harry & Hugh: The Dorset Village Book (Countryside Books)
  3. Shillingstone in 'Dorset Life'
  4. Hidden Dorset gems
  5. Betjeman, John, ed. (1968) Collins Pocket Guide to English Parish Churches; the South. London: Collins; p. 176
  6. National Heritage List 1013675: Mediæval cross base south of Holy Rood Church
  7. "The Dorset walk 2 - North Dorset Trailway". Dorset Life. June 2014. http://www.dorsetlife.co.uk/2014/06/the-dorset-walk-2-north-dorset-trailway/. Retrieved 27 August 2018. 
  8. Shillingstone Light Railway