Place:Pimperne, Dorset, England

Watchers
NamePimperne
TypeAncient parish, Civil parish
Coordinates50.883°N 2.135°W
Located inDorset, England
See alsoPimperne Hundred, Dorset, Englandhundred in which it was located
Blandford Rural, Dorset, Englandrural district 1894-1974
North Dorset District, Dorset, Englanddistrict municipality covering the area 1974-2019


the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia

Pimperne (#16 on map) is a civil parish and a village in north Dorset, England, situated on the Cranborne Chase. The village is two miles (three kilometres) northeast of the town of Blandford Forum. In the UK census of 2011 the civil parish had 478 households and a population of 1,109.

The first records of Pimperne go back to the Domesday Book of 1086, where it is recorded as "Pinpre", but it is believed that the village goes back to Anglo-Saxon times. A Bronze Age settlement was discovered in the barrows to the north of the village. A house found in this has been used as the model for all Bronze Age houses, including the reconstruction at Butser Ancient Farm in Hampshire. The parish church of St. Peter was rebuilt by Lord Portman of Bryanston in 1872-4, though some Norman features from the previous building, such as the font and chancel arch, were retained.

The following description from John Marius Wilson's Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales of 1870-72 is provided by the website A Vision of Britain Through Time (University of Portsmouth Department of Geography).

"PIMPERNE, a parish and a hundred in Dorset. The parish lies 2¼ miles N E by N of Blandford [railway] station, has a post-office under Blandford, and is in Blandford [registration] district. Acres: 4,510. Real property: £7,878. Population: 495. Houses: 104. The property is divided among a few. The manor belongs to Lord Portman.
"A maze covering an acre was here, and was destroyed in 1730. The north tract is occupied by Pimperne down. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury. Value: £487. Patron: Lord Portman. The church is partly Norman and all good; and contains an old font and a brass of 1688. There are a Wesleyan chapel and a free school. Christopher Pitt, the translator of the Æneid, was rector."
Image:Blandford RD 1900 small.png

Governance

Pimperne was originally a parish in the Pimperne Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the Blandford Rural District.

In 1974, under the Local Government Act 1972, all urban and rural districts across England were abolished and counties were reorganized into metropolitan and non-metropolitan districts. The parish of Pimperne joined the non-metropolitan North Dorset District.

Under another set of local government reforms adopted on 1 April 2019, North Dorset District was abolished, and the County of Dorset (excluding Bournemouth Christchurch and Poole) became a single unitary authority. The area is now administered by Dorset Council.

Dorset Research Tips

One of the many maps available on the website A Vision of Britain through Time is one from the Ordnance Survey Series of 1900 illustrating the parish boundaries of Dorset at the turn of the 20th century. This map blows up to show all parishes and many of the small villages and hamlets. The internal boundaries on this map are the rural districts which are indicated in WeRelate's "See Also" box for the place concerned (unless it is an urban parish).

The following websites have pages explaining their provisions in WeRelate's Repository Section. Some provide free online databases. Some are linked to Ancestry.

  • GENUKI makes a great many suggestions as to other websites with worthwhile information about Dorset, but it has left the 19th century descriptions of each of the ecclesiastical parishes to UK Genealogy Archives which presents facts differently. Neither GENUKI or UK Genealogy Archives deal with the more modern civil parishes.
  • FamilySearch Wiki provides a similar information service to GENUKI which may be more up-to-date, but UK Genealogy Archives may prove more helpful.
  • A Vision of Britain through Time has
  1. organization charts of the hierarchies of parishes within hundreds, registration districts and rural and urban districts up to 1974
  2. excerpts from gazetteers of the late 19th century outlining individual towns and parishes
  3. reviews of population through the time period 1800-1960
  • The contents of the Victoria County History is provided by British History Online for many English counties, but not for Dorset. Instead they have provided the Royal Commission on Historical Monuments of England (RCHME Inventory Volumes) published in 1972 in five volumes covering the county in geographical areas. Thes articles describe buildings rather than towns and villages, but may be of use in researching a manor-owning family.
  • More local sources can often be found by referring to "What Links Here" in the column on the left.

Censuses

UK censuses are taken every ten years in the years ending in "1". There was no census in 1941. Details are not made available for 100 years after a census. A number of online databases (both paid and free) provide transcriptions of censuses up to 1911. Most of these provide information for an individual or a family. Many also provide images of the originals and thus allow browsing of a page or perhaps a whole enumeration district. The 1921 census was published in January 2022. It is available at FindMyPast with a charge additional to the usual subscrition to view the manuscript entries (there is no extra charge to view the index).

The Dorset Online Parish Clerks provides a good number of 19th century census transcriptions as well as lists of baptisms, marriages and burials as recorded in the parish. The formal Home Office Numbers (those starting with HO used in 1841 and 1851), the Registrar General Numbers (starting with RG in later decades, and the Enumeration District Numbers are included. There is an illustrated article to introduce each parish.

The 1841 census differed from the later ones in two different ways.

  • The question "where born" was to be answered either with the words "in county" (or "y") or "out of county" (or "n") with perhaps a more specific place in the case of those born abroad.
  • Ages for adults (usually those over 15, though some enumerators gave specific ages up to 20) were rounded down to the nearest 5 years. (i.e., for persons aged 15 years and under 20 write 15; 20 years and under 25 write 20; 25 years and under 30 write 25; and so on up to the eldest interval.

From 1851 onwards people were asked for the county and civil parish in which they were born whether in or out of the county, and ages were expressed exactly (in months for infants).

This page uses content from the English Wikipedia. The original content was at Pimperne. The list of authors can be seen in the page history. As with WeRelate, the content of Wikipedia is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.