|
|
- the text in this section is based on an article in Wikipedia
Wynford Eagle (#36 on map) is a civil parish and a small hamlet in Dorset, England, approximately 1.5 miles (2.4 km) southwest of Maiden Newton (#14) and 7.5 miles (12.1 km) northwest of Dorchester. Dorset County Council's 2013 mid-year estimate of the parish population is 60.
The manor house, now Manor Farm, rebuilt in 1630, was from 1551 for many years the seat of the Puritan Sydenham family, to which belonged the distinguished physician Thomas Sydenham (1624–1689). The family lost the property in scandalous circumstances, the last Sydenham owner dying in Dorchester prison in 1709. The early generations of this family are traced here in WeRelate.
The estate was later acquired by the Best family, originally of Somerset, for whom the title of Baron Wynford was created in 1829. The same family remain the principal landowners. William Best was the first Baron Wynford.
The church of Saint Lawrence, formerly a chapelry of the church of Toller Fratrum, and later annexed to it as a perpetual curacy, was rebuilt in 1842 but preserves a striking Norman tympanum, carved with two wyverns, probably intended to represent eagles, as a pun on the name of Matilda de l'Aigle, who presumably commissioned it, according to one of the two inscriptions; the other names the sculptor, Alvy or Alvi.
| 
|
Governance
Wynford Eagle was originally a parish in the Tollerford Hundred, one of the hundreds or early subdivisions of the county of Dorset. From 1894 until 1974 it was part of the Dorchester 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. Wynford Eagle joined the non-metropolitan West Dorset District, Dorset, England.
Under another set of local government reforms adopted on 1 April 2019, 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.
Research Tips
|
|
