Description
Kimmeridge, a village, a parish, and a vale in Dorsetshire. The village stands half a mile NE of Kimmeridge Bay, and 4 miles SW by W of Corfe Castle station on the L. & S.W.R. It has a post office under Wareham; money order office, Corfe Castle; telegraph office, Creech. Acreage, 995; population, 147. The property belonged to Ceme Abbey, was given by Henry VIII. to the Uvedales, passed to the CJavells, and belongs now to the Mansel family. The bay is a semicircular inlet, about three-fourths of a mile wide, bounded by cliffs of the Kimmeridge shale formation, and contains beds of bituminous coal called Kimmeridge coal. The living is a donative in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £100 with residence, in the gift of the owner of Smedmore. The church is partly Norman. The vale opens from the sea, between Encombe Point on the E, and Gad Cliff on the W, a distance of 4 1/2 miles; is girt inland by receding hills, in the form of an amphitheatre, composed of oolite stratum. This is a combination of clay and bitumen, bums with a bright flame, emitting considerable heat and a disagreeable odour, and was used at Wareham for producing by distillation a volatile mineral oil, asphalt, grease, and a manure. The clay also yields alum, and the Clavells had works for extracting the alum till 1745, and made a pier for conducting the commerce connected with their works. Bracelets made of the Kimmeridge coal were found in an ancient burial-place at Dorchester in 1839, and are believed, from the monumental evidences of the burial-place, to have belonged to the Romano-British period. Small disks of the same substance, popularly called Kimmeridge coal money, are found in various parts, about a foot below the surface of the soil, and these are regarded by the common people as coins or amulets of the ancient inhabitants, but by antiquaries as refuse pieces from Roman fabrication of beads, bracelets) and other ornaments.
Parish Church
The church (not dedicated) is a small and plain edifice of stone, in the Norman and Decorated styles, and consists of chancel, nave, south porch, and a small western bell-cote containing one bell: the church was the burial place of the Clavells, of Smedmore, to whom there are a number of inscriptions; there are 115 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1694.
