Place:Chedington, Dorset, England

the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia Chedington (#5 on map) is a civil parish and a village in the west of the county of Dorset, England, situated near the A356 road 4 miles (6.4 km) southeast of Crewkerne, Somerset. Dorset County Council estimated that in 2013 the population of the civil parish was 130. In the 21st century its most local administration is the Parrett and Axe Parish Council. The village lies between the headwaters of the River Parrett, to the north, and the River Axe to the south. The Parrett flows in a northerly direction to the Bristol Channel at Bridgwater, Somerset, whilst the Axe flows south to the English Channel at Axmouth, Devon, thus locating Chedington on the watershed of England's southwest peninsula which covers Cornwall, Devon, Somerset, and parts of and Dorset.

The name of the village is Old English for ‘the farm of a man named Cedd’, but it was not included in the Domesday Book, being first mentioned over 100 years later in 1194. It grew up around Chedington Court, although it was the neighbouring village of South Perrott (#22) that provided the tradesmen needed to service the estate. The house was completely rebuilt in 1840 by the then owner William Trevelyan Cox, as a flamboyant, Jacobean-style mansion with curvilinear gables. Across the narrow thoroughfare, directly opposite to Chedington Court, is the 16th-century dressed-stone Manor Farm, much altered in the 17th century with the inscription "Thomas Warren 1634". Lower Farm, a house 250 yards southwest of the church, is of two storeys and was built in the 17th century.

Chedington church, formerly dedicated to St. James, was made redundant in 1980 and has since been converted into a private dwelling. Built in 1841 on a site just to the south of the original church to a design by Richard Carver of Taunton, and originally consisting solely of nave and chancel. The building was in service for less than 140 years before it was deconsecrated, its bell dismounted and its internal fixtures removed. Chedington parish is now combined with that of South Perrott.

At the north end of the village is Winyards Gap, marking the western end of the Dorset Downs. Winyards Gap was immortalised by Thomas Hardy in his poem A Trampwoman's Tragedy. After the First World War, the National Trust, which owns Wynyard’s Gap, donated 16 acres of land here for a memorial to the 43rd (Wessex) Division of the Dorsetshire Regiment and a replica of the monument found on Hill 112 at Caen in Normandy was erected.

For more information, see the EN Wikipedia article Chedington.

The following description is 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).

"CHEDDINGTON, or Chedington, a parish in Beaminster [registration] district, Dorset; at the sources of the rivers Axe and Parret, 3¼ miles N of Beaminster, and 4½ SE of Crewkerne [railway] station. Post town, Mosterton, under Crewkerne. Acres: 773. Real property, with Mosterton and South Perrot: £5,923. Population: 176. Houses: 33. The property is divided among a few. The land is high and hilly; and most of its eminences command superb views. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury. Value: £128. Patron: W. T. Cox, Esq. The church is modern, and in the Tudor style. Hare, the translator of Horace, was rector."

Governance

Chedington was originally a parish in the Beaminster Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the Beaminster 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. Chedington joined the non-metropolitan West Dorset District.

Under another set of local government reforms adopted on 1 April 2019, the West 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.

• Repository:Dorset History Centre
• Repository:Dorset Online Parish Clerks (free online transcriptions for many parishes)
• Repository:UK Genealogy Archives
• Repository:Dorset Family History Society (England)
• Repository:Somerset and Dorset Family History Society
• Repository:Dorset Genealogy Resources
• Repository:FreeBMD.org.uk for the GRO civil registration index
• Repository:FreeCEN - UK Census Online Project
• Repository:FreeREG - UK parish register indexes

• 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).