Sherborne
See also: Sherborne, GloucestershireSherborne is an affluent
market town in north west
Dorset,
England, situated on the
River Yeo and
A30 road, on the edge of the
Blackmore Vale six
miles east of
Yeovil. The town has a population of 9,350 (
As of 2001), 40.8% are retired. The town is famous for its history, including its
abbey,
castles,
manor house and
private school. The picturesque town is a popular, though relatively unknown,
tourist town.
Much of the town, including many
medieval and
Georgian buildings, are built from distinctive
ochre ham stone, including the Abbey.
The town was named
scir burne by the
Saxon inhabitants, a name meaning
"clear stream" (see:
Bourne).
The town was made the capital of
Wessex, one of the seven Saxon kingdoms of England, and
King Alfred's elder brothers
King Ethelbert and
King Ethelbald are buried in the abbey. In
705 the
diocese was split between Sherborne and
Winchester, and
King Ine founded an Abbey for
St Aldhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne. The Bishop's seat was moved to
Old Sarum in
1075 and the church at Sherborne became a
Benedictine Monastery. In the
15th century the church was deliberately burnt down during tensions between the town and the monastery, and was rebuilt between
1425 and
1504, though some of the
Norman structure remains. In
1539 the monastery was bought by Sir
John Horsey and became a conventional church.
See the article Sherborne Abbey for more on the history of the abbey.In the
12th century Roger de Caen, Bishop of Salisbury and Chancellor of England built a fortified palace in Sherborne. The palace was destroyed in
1645 by
General Fairfax, and the ruins are owned by
English Heritage.
In
1594 Sir Walter Raleigh built an Elizabethan mansion in the grounds of the old palace, today known as
Sherborne Castle.
There has been a school in Sherborne since the time of
King Alfred, who was educated there. The school was refounded in
1550 as
King Edward's public school, using some of the old abbey buildings, though it is now known simply as
Sherborne School. The school remains one of the top fee-paying schools in
Britain, boasts numerous successful alumni, including
Alan Turing,
Jeremy Irons,
Chris Martin and
John le Carré. Until
1992 there were also two
Grammar Schools, Foster's School for boys and Lord Digby's School for girls.
Other notable historical buildings in the town include the
Almshouses of
Saints
John the Baptist and
John the Evangelist, founded in their current form in
1438 and expanded in the
Victorian Era in indistinguishable
medieval style architecture. The
conduit,
Hospice of
St Julian, and
Lord Digby's school are also well preserved old buildings in the town.
Sherborne was for many centuries the centre of a
hundred of the same name.
* Sherborne features in
Thomas Hardy's
Wessex as "Sherton Abbas".
* The film musical
Goodbye, Mr. Chips was set in Sherborne.Sherborne was the home of a very distinctive Morris dancing tradition. The stepping is unique within the Cotswold Morris tradition, as being "one hop, two three" instead of "one two three hop" which gives the dances an elegant and quite restrained character. Sherborne dances are widely performed by many modern Morris sides.
*
John le Carré's novel
A Murder of Quality takes place largely in a fictionalized version of Sherborne: Carne. The house in which the first murder is committed is Hyle House, in the south west of the town.
*
Census data*
Town web site*
Photographs of Sherborne*
Sherborne School web site# Pitt-Rivers, Michael, 1968.
Dorset. London: Faber & Faber.# The 1985 AA illustrated guide to the towns and villages of Britain.
