Description
Tarrant Hinton, a parish in Dorsetshire, 5 miles NNE of Blandford station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway. It has a post and money order office under Blandford; telegraph office, Tarrant Gunville. Acreage, 2321; population, 213. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £286 with residence. Patron, Pembroke College, Cambridge. The church is in the Perpendicular style. Roman remains have been found in the neighbourhood.
Parish Church
The church of St. Mary is an edifice of stone in the Early English and Perpendicular styles, consisting of chancel, with north chapel, nave of three bays with south aisle and small two-storied annexe with priest's chamber, south porch, and an embattled western tower containing 3 bells, one of which, said to have been found in a neighbouring field during the Commonwealth, has an ancient Latin inscription: on the north side of the chancel is an Easter sepulcre of the reign of Henry VIII. with a Latin inscription: in the south aisle is a Norman piscina: the font of Purbeck marble is also Norman: in 1891-2 the church was thoroughly restored, new roofed and reseated at a cost of £850, under the direction of Mr. A.W.N. Burder, architect, of Loughborough, and was reopened on St. Thomas' day, 1892: there are 150 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1545, and there is a list of rectors from 1314.
