Description
Durweston, a parish in Dorsetshire, on the river Stour, 2 miles from Shilllngstone station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway, and 2 1/4 NW of Blandford-Forum. It includes Knighton, and has a post office under Blandford. Acreage, 1850; population of the civil parish, 472; of the ecclesiastical, 714. the living is a rectory, united with the rectory of Bryanston, in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £355 with residence. Patron, Viscount Portman. The church was rebuilt in 1850, after designs by Hardwick, is in the Early English style, and has a tower. There is a news-room and small library.
Parish Church
The church of St. Nicholas is an edifice of flint and stone in the Transition style, consisting of chancel, nave of five bays, south aisle and south porch, with a square western embattled tower with pinnacles containing 5 bells, one of which was added in 1887, in commemoration of the Jubilee of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, and a clock, erected in 1897, at a cost of £60, to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee: a stone carving to St. Eloi, the patron saint of blacksmiths, was discovered when the old church was pulled down, embedded in the wall hehind the altar, and is now placed over the west porch inside the church entrance; the figures had been mutilated, probably by Cromwell's commissioners : there are 300 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1598.
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Villages, Hamlets, &c.
Knighton, a tithing in Durweston parish, Dorsetshire, 2 miles NW of Blandford Forum.
