Oborne is a village and

civil parish In England, a civil parish is a type of administrative parish used for local government. It is a territorial designation which is the lowest tier of local government below districts and counties, or their combined form, the unitary authorit ...

in north west

Dorset Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

, situated just north of the

A30 road The A30 is a major road in England, running WSW from London to Land's End. The road has been a principal axis in Britain from the 17th century to early 19th century, as a major coaching route. It used to provide the fastest route from Lond ...

approximately northeast of

Sherborne Sherborne is a market town and civil parish in north west Dorset, in South West England. It is sited on the River Yeo, on the edge of the Blackmore Vale, east of Yeovil. The parish includes the hamlets of Nether Coombe and Lower Clatcombe. ...

, and is close to the border with

Somerset ( en, All The People of Somerset) , locator_map = , coordinates = , region = South West England , established_date = Ancient , established_by = , preceded_by = , origin = , lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset , lord_ ...

. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 101. Oborne shares a grouped parish council, Yeohead & Castleton Parish Council, with the three village parishes of

Poyntington Poyntington is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in South West England. It lies on the edge of the Blackmore Vale about north of Sherborne. In the 2011 census the parish had a population of 128. Poyntington shares a grouped pa ...

Goathill Goathill is a village and civil parish in the county of Dorset in England, situated in northern Dorset, a couple of miles east of the town of Sherborne. It lies very close to the county boundary however, and for much of its history (until 1896) ...

and Castleton. A new parish church, designed by William Slater, was built on a fresh site in 1862. The volume on Dorset in the

Buildings of England The Pevsner Architectural Guides are a series of guide books to the architecture of Great Britain and Ireland. Begun in the 1940s by the art historian Sir Nikolaus Pevsner, the 46 volumes of the original Buildings of England series were publish ...

series by John Newman and

Nikolaus Pevsner Sir Nikolaus Bernhard Leon Pevsner (30 January 1902 – 18 August 1983) was a German-British art historian and architectural historian best known for his monumental 46-volume series of county-by-county guides, ''The Buildings of England'' (1 ...

describe this as having "nave with bellcote, chancel and apse ... Slater's and Carpenter's typical single and twin lancets with pointed-trefoiled cusping." The remains of the Old St Cuthbert's Church are half a mile south, on the other side of the A30. Only the chancel remains. Oborne had been given to

Sherborne Abbey Sherborne Abbey, otherwise the Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin, is a Church of England church in Sherborne in the English county of Dorset. It has been a Saxon cathedral (705–1075), a Benedictine abbey church (998–1539), and since 1539, ...

by the Saxon King Edgar in the 10th century and it remained a 'chapel of ease' to the abbey until the

Dissolution Dissolution may refer to: Arts and entertainment Books * ''Dissolution'' (''Forgotten Realms'' novel), a 2002 fantasy novel by Richard Lee Byers * ''Dissolution'' (Sansom novel), a 2003 historical novel by C. J. Sansom Music * Dissolution, in mu ...

in 1539. Above the lintels of windows on the east and north sides are inscriptions entreating prayers for the good standing of Abbot John Myer (1533) and Sacristan John Dunster of Sherborne. The interior of the chancel contains a 17th-century pulpit and communion rails as well as a

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman Ca ...

and font from the former church at North Wootton. Nothing now remains of the medieval nave that was demolished in the 1860s. The chancel lay neglected until the 1930s, when a new incumbent began to restore it, taking advice from A. R. Powys (secretary of the

Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB) (also known as Anti-Scrape) is an amenity society founded by William Morris, Philip Webb, and others in 1877 to oppose the destructive 'restoration' of ancient buildings occurring in ...

) who was also responsible for the restoration of the church at Winterborne Tomson, Dorset.

References

External links

{{authority control Villages in Dorset Civil parishes in Dorset