Description
Bryanstone or Blandford-Bryan, a parish in Dorsetshire, on the river Stour, 1 mile from Blandford station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway. It has a post office under Blandford, which is the money order and telegraph office. Acreage, 1644; population, 242. Bryanstone House here is the seat of Viscount Portman, is a large mansion after a design by Wyatt, has an octagonal staircase 30 feet in diameter, and stands in a park upwards of a mile long. The living is a rectory, annexed to the rectory of Durweston, in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £442. Patron, Viscount Portman.
Parish Church
The old church of St. Martin is a small edifice of stone, consisting of chancel, nave and western bell turret containing one bell: beneath is a vault which has been the burial-place of the Portman family since 1764. The new church of St. Martin, erected in 1895-98 to the memory of the late Viscount and Viscountess Portman, from designs by Mr E.P. Warren, architect, of Westminster, is an edifice of Portland, Chilmark and Tisbury stone, and consists of chancel, nave, aisles, and a tower containing 6 bells. The ceiling is lined with the oak floor-boards from the old mansion; the chancel ceiling is waggon-vaulted and divided by ribs. The font is of Hopton Wood stone, on a shaft of Torquay marble. There are several stained windows, two of which are memorials to the late Viscountess Portman, and one to the late James John Forrester, of Paget's Horse, killed in South Africa, March 13th 1901. There are about 230 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1763.
