Wimborne Minster (often referred to as Wimborne, ) is a market town in Dorset in South West England, and the name of the Church of England church in that town. It lies at the

confluence In geography, a confluence (also: ''conflux'') occurs where two or more flowing bodies of water join to form a single channel. A confluence can occur in several configurations: at the point where a tributary joins a larger river (main stem); o ...

of the River Stour and the River Allen, north of

Poole Poole () is a large coastal town and seaport in Dorset, on the south coast of England. The town is east of Dorchester and adjoins Bournemouth to the east. Since 1 April 2019, the local authority is Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole Counc ...

, on the

Dorset Heaths The Dorset Heaths form an important area of heathland within the Poole Basin in southern England. Much of the area is protected. Extent According to Natural England, who have designated the Dorset Heaths as National Character Area 135, th ...

, and is part of the South East Dorset conurbation. According to Office for National Statistics data the population of the Wimborne Minster built-up area was 15,552.

Governance

The town and its administrative area are served by eleven councillors plus one from the nearby ward of Cranfield. The

electoral ward A ward is a local authority area, typically used for electoral purposes. In some countries, wards are usually named after neighbourhoods, thoroughfares, parishes, landmarks, geographical features and in some cases historical figures connected to t ...

of Wimborne Minster is slightly bigger than the parish, with a 2011 population of 7,014. Wimborne Minster is part of the

Mid Dorset and North Poole Mid Dorset and North Poole is a constituency represented in the House of Commons of the UK Parliament since 2015 by Michael Tomlinson, a Conservative. Boundaries 1997–2010: The District of Purbeck wards of Bere Regis, Lytchett Matravers, ...

parliamentary constituency.

Buildings and architecture

Wimborne has one of the foremost collections of 15th-, 16th- and 17th-century buildings in Dorset. Local planning has restricted the construction of new buildings in areas such as the Cornmarket and the High Street, resulting in the preservation of many of the original buildings. Examples of include the church of Wimborne Minster, the town hall, the

Priest's House Museum The Museum of East Dorset (previously known as Priest's House Museum) is a local museum in the town of Wimborne Minster in Dorset, England. It is located on the high street, opposite the Church of Wimborne Minster. The museum occupies a historic ...

and dozens of 16th-, 17th- and 18th-century fronted shops and pubs. The town is home to the Tivoli Theatre, a 1930s art deco cinema and theatre.

Wimborne Minster Church

This is a

Saxon The Saxons ( la, Saxones, german: Sachsen, ang, Seaxan, osx, Sahson, nds, Sassen, nl, Saksen) were a group of Germanic * * * * peoples whose name was given in the early Middle Ages to a large country (Old Saxony, la, Saxonia) near the Nor ...

church, with

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

and

Gothic Gothic or Gothics may refer to: People and languages *Goths or Gothic people, the ethnonym of a group of East Germanic tribes **Gothic language, an extinct East Germanic language spoken by the Goths **Crimean Gothic, the Gothic language spoken b ...

architecture. It is famed for its

chained library A chained library is a library where the books are attached to their bookcase by a chain, which is sufficiently long enough to allow the books to be taken from their shelves and read, but not removed from the library itself. The practice was usua ...

and the tomb of King Ethelred, the brother of

Alfred the Great Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bot ...

, as well as the tombs of John Beaufort, Duke of Somerset, and his duchess, the maternal grandparents of King Henry VII of England. The tombs are made of Dorset Limestone and New Forest Stone.

Wimborne Model Town

The model town is one of the largest and longest-established model towns in England. It depicts Wimborne at the time the model was made, in the 1950s. It is at 1:10 scale, resulting in the model of the Minster being several feet high. The model shop windows accurately show the goods which the real shops were selling at the time. The exhibition also includes a model railway based on Thomas the Tank Engine, which was opened by

Christopher Awdry Christopher Vere Awdry (born 2 July 1940) is an English author. He is best known for his contributions to ''The Railway Series'' of books featuring Thomas the Tank Engine, which was started by his late father, Wilbert Awdry (1911–1997). He has ...

, and expanded in 2014.

Events

At weekends and national holidays, the town crier can be seen in the main square and around the Minster. The legacy and position of the town crier date back to the Civil War. The town has a large civil war reenactment society, which performs every year. The town has a well-established and large market, the

Wimborne Market Wimborne Market was an historic market in a large covered structure in Wimborne Minster, Dorset, England. It ceased to trade on 19 December 2021 after 165 years of trading. The market was demolished and the land redeveloped. Origins The market ...

. The market is held on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was previously located in the town centre but moved out several years ago to a site on the edge of town to accommodate its size. Every year Wimborne hosts the longest fireworks display in Dorset, as part of its Guy Fawkes celebrations; a county record that it has held since 2004. The bonfire and pyrotechnics display is held each year in the grounds of

St Michael's Church of England Middle School Colehill is a parish, neighbouring Wimborne Minster, in Dorset, England, with a population of 7,000 (2001), reducing slightly to 6,927 at the 2011 census. History The name Colehill originated in 1431 as Colhulle, becoming Colhill in 1518 a ...

and is well supported by many thousands of people from the town,

Colehill Colehill is a parish, neighbouring Wimborne Minster, in Dorset, England, with a population of 7,000 (2001), reducing slightly to 6,927 at the 2011 census. History The name Colehill originated in 1431 as Colhulle, becoming Colhill in 1518 a ...

village and the surrounding area. All proceeds are donated each year to local schools, and since 2004 over £61,000 has been raised for local school projects and equipment. Every two years in mid-August, the Park Initiative, an interchurch charity working on Leigh Park estate, holds a community event called "Alive in the Park" in the centre of the estate using a large marquee.

Wimborne Minster Folk Festival

Alton Morris at Wimborne Folk Festival 2011

Every summer in June the town holds the

Wimborne Minster Folk Festival Wimborne Minster Folk Festival took over from the previously known Wimborne Folk Festival in 2013 when the previous organisers retired in August 2012, after over 30 years organising the festival. The annual festival is still internationally re ...

. Founded in 1980, the annual event of traditional folk dance and music has become the focal point for one of the largest gathering of dance teams and musicians in the South of England. The festival involves morris dancing, Appalachian dancing, concerts, workshops and children's activities, with parts of the town being closed to traffic. The Festival planned for 2020 did not go ahead due to the health precautions imposed in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. Instead, with the cooperation of local businesses and Wimborne Minster Town Council, the Folk Festival committee made use of Café @ The Allendale, a local community hub, to provide food and meals for those in difficulties, e.g. as a result of having to

self-isolate In health care facilities, isolation represents one of several measures that can be taken to implement in infection control: the prevention of communicable diseases from being transmitted from a patient to other patients, health care workers, ...

or not being able to work during the

lockdowns A lockdown is a restriction policy for people, community or a country to stay where they are, usually due to specific risks (such as COVID-19) that could possibly harm the people if they move and interact freely. The term is used for a prison ...

. The 2021 Festival also had to be cancelled but an online event took place over the usual second weekend in June.

Education and schools

The town has three first schools (St John's, Wimborne and Pamphill) and two middle schools (St Michael's and Allenbourn). Wimborne First School, formerly Wimborne Primary School, has been educating the children of Wimborne Minster to primary level since 1911. Wimborne and the adjacent area of

Merley Merley is a large housing estate in the unparished area of Poole, a mile (2 km) south of Wimborne Minster. Originally called Myrle, Merley was a manor in the tithing of Great Canford (or Canford Magna). The village merges with that of Oakle ...

are served by two upper schools:

Corfe Hills School Corfe Hills School is a co-educational upper school in Broadstone, Poole, Dorset, England, in the urban fringe between Poole and Wimborne. The school became an academy in 2011. The school serves Corfe Mullen, Broadstone, Wimborne, Merley and ...

and Queen Elizabeth's School. Queen Elizabeth's School has very close links with the Minster and was founded by

Lady Margaret Beaufort Lady Margaret Beaufort (usually pronounced: or ; 31 May 1441/43 – 29 June 1509) was a major figure in the Wars of the Roses of the late fifteenth century, and mother of King Henry VII of England, the first Tudor monarch. A descendant of ...

in 1497. After her death the school became Wimborne Grammar School. Although the Grammar School buildings still remain they have now been converted to flats. The school was established on its current site in 1972 after the merging of Wimborne Grammar School and the County Modern School.

Dumpton School Dumpton School is an independent day school in Wimborne, Dorset, South West England, for girls and boys aged 2 to 13 years. History The school was founded as a boys' preparatory school at Dumpton Park in Kent in 1903 and evacuated to Cranborn ...

is located nearby. The nearby first schools of Hayeswood and Colehill serve Wimborne.

Clubs

The local football club Wimborne Town F.C. play in the

Southern Football League The Southern League is a men's football competition featuring semi-professional clubs from the South and Midlands of England. Together with the Isthmian League and the Northern Premier League it forms levels seven and eight of the English fo ...

. In rugby union,

Wimborne R.F.C. Wimborne Minster (often referred to as Wimborne, ) is a market town in Dorset in South West England, and the name of the Church of England church in that town. It lies at the confluence of the River Stour, Dorset, River Stour and the River All ...

has been in existence in its present form since 1950 and is based in Leigh Park, Gordon Road on the eastern side of the town. Cricket has been played in Wimborne since at least 1793, when the club was known as Hanham's Cricket Club, playing on the green in the centre of town from 1860. In 2010, the club moved to its new ground at The Leaze as part of the planning application which allowed Waitrose to build a new supermarket on the site of the original Wimborne Cricket Club. The club's 4 adult teams play in the Dorset Cricket League and the 1st XI have won the Dorset Premier League title in 1997, 2012, 2016 and 2018. Dorset County Cricket Club played home matches at Wimborne sporadically from the 1957 until 1979 before returning in 2018 to Wimborne's current ground at The Leaze.

Economy

Wimborne Minster, the town hall - geograph

The aerospace company Cobham plc has headquarters in Wimborne. Home decoration company

Farrow & Ball Farrow & Ball is a British manufacturer of paints and wallpapers largely based upon historic colour palettes and archives. The company is particularly well known for the unusual names of its products. History The company was started by John Fa ...

began in the town, and is still headquartered nearby in

Ferndown Ferndown is a town and civil parish in Dorset in southern England, immediately to the north of Bournemouth and Poole. The parish, which until 1972 was called ''Hampreston'', includes the communities of Hampreston, Longham, Stapehill and Trickett' ...

. The economy of the town is dedicated towards leisure and has shops, restaurants and pubs. Tourism is an aspect in the town's economy. The town is also served by a Waitrose located on the old Cricket Green and a Co-op supermarket.

Wimborne railway station

From 1847 to 1977 Wimborne was served by a two-platform railway station. The station was built for the Southampton and Dorchester Railway, later part of the London and South Western Railway. It was expanded when the Somerset and Dorset Joint Railway was constructed between

Bath Bath may refer to: * Bathing, immersion in a fluid ** Bathtub, a large open container for water, in which a person may wash their body ** Public bathing, a public place where people bathe * Thermae, ancient Roman public bathing facilities Plac ...

and

. Wimborne was used as a reversing point on the Somerset and Dorset, but its importance was reduced when an avoiding line was built from Bailey Gate to Broadstone Junction. The station had a large goods yard, the site of which is used for the weekly Wimborne Market. The station was closed to passengers in 1964 and sundries (parcels and light goods) in 1966, as a result of the

Beeching Axe The Beeching cuts (also Beeching Axe) was a plan to increase the efficiency of the nationalised railway system in Great Britain. The plan was outlined in two reports: ''The Reshaping of British Railways'' (1963) and ''The Development of the ...

programme. The final goods trains ran in May 1977.

Twin towns

Wimborne Minster is twinned with *

Ochsenfurt Ochsenfurt () is a town in the district of Würzburg, in Bavaria, Germany. Ochsenfurt is located on the left bank of the River Main and has around 11,000 inhabitants. This makes it the largest town in Würzburg district. Name Like Oxford, the t ...

, Bavaria, Germany * Valognes, Normandy, France

Notable people

Tim Berners-Lee Sir Timothy John Berners-Lee (born 8 June 1955), also known as TimBL, is an English computer scientist best known as the inventor of the World Wide Web. He is a Professorial Fellow of Computer Science at the University of Oxford and a profess ...

, inventor of the World Wide Web *Lieutenant William Cox (1764–1837), Australian pioneer born in Wimborne. He was responsible for building the first road across the Blue Mountains west of Sydney and thus allowed the expansion and development of the new colony. * John Creasey, English crime writer, lived at "Cattistock", Fernlea Avenue,

during the 1940s.Handwritten letter by John Creasey
28 April, 1941 *

Montague Druitt Montague John Druitt (15 August 1857 – early December 1888)His body was discovered on 31 December 1888 about a month after his death. A train ticket dated 1 December was found in his pocket. His gravestone reads 4 December 1888; his death ...

, suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders * Robert Fripp, guitarist in the prog rock band King Crimson *

Jimmy Glass James Robert Glass (born 1 August 1973) is an English former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He is chiefly remembered for scoring the last-minute goal which kept Carlisle United in the Football League in 1999, while on loa ...

George W. Gray George William Gray (4 September 1926 – 12 May 2013) was a Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Hull who was instrumental in developing the long-lasting materials which made liquid crystal displays possible. He created and sys ...

Isaac Gulliver Isaac Gulliver (1745–1822) was an English smuggler based on the South Coast of England, South Coast. Gulliver and his gang ran fifteen luggers to transport gin, silk, lace and tea from the Continent to Poole Bay and came to control the coast f ...

Thomas Hardy Thomas Hardy (2 June 1840 – 11 January 1928) was an English novelist and poet. A Victorian realist in the tradition of George Eliot, he was influenced both in his novels and in his poetry by Romanticism, including the poetry of William Word ...

lived in a house in Avenue Road, which bears a blue plaque recording that this was where he wrote ''

A Pair of Blue Eyes ''A Pair of Blue Eyes'' is a novel by Thomas Hardy, published in 1873, first serialised between September 1872 and July 1873. It was Hardy's third published novel, and the first not published anonymously upon its first publication. Hardy includ ...

''. *

Josephine Kermode Josephine Kermode (1852–1937) was a Manx poet and playwright better known by the pen name "Cushag". Early life Margaret Letitia Josephine Kermode was born on 18 September 1852, at 73 Parliament Street, Ramsey.'Cushag: An Appreciation’by Co ...

, the

Manx Manx (; formerly sometimes spelled Manks) is an adjective (and derived noun) describing things or people related to the Isle of Man: * Manx people **Manx surnames * Isle of Man It may also refer to: Languages * Manx language, also known as Manx ...

poet and playwright (better known by her pen name ''Cushag'') lived the last five years of her life in Wimborne. * Saint Leoba ( 710 – 28 September 782) was an

oblate In Christianity (especially in the Roman Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Methodist traditions), an oblate is a person who is specifically dedicated to God or to God's service. Oblates are individuals, either laypersons or clergy, normally livi ...

at Wimborne Minster * George Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk (1906–1994), Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Commissioner for Singapore and Southeast Asia, was born at Merley House *

Walter Parke Walter Evelyn Parke (27 July 1891 – 13 October 1914) was an English first-class cricketer and British Army officer. Parke served in the Durham Light Infantry, seeing action in France during the opening stages of the First World War. He was ...

(1891–1914), first-class cricketer and British Army officer * Walter Shaw (1868–1937), former

Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements The chief justice of Singapore is the presiding member of the Supreme Court of Singapore. It is the highest post in the judicial system of Singapore, appointed by the president, chosen from the candidates recommended by the prime minister. The in ...

and Chairman of the Shaw Commission *

Al Stewart Alastair Ian Stewart (born 5 September 1945) is a Scottish born singer-songwriter and folk-rock musician who rose to prominence as part of the British folk revival in the 1960s and 1970s. He developed a unique style of combining folk-rock so ...

, the Scottish musician and singer-songwriter, grew up in the town. *

Gordon Haskell Gordon Haskell (27 April 1946 – 15 October 2020) was an English musician and songwriter. A pop, rock, jazz, country and blues vocalist, guitarist, and bassist, he was a school friend of King Crimson guitarist Robert Fripp. The two first worke ...

, singer-songwriter, grew up in the town and went to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School. He was in Bands Like

Les Fleur De Lys The Fleur de Lys (initially Les Fleur de Lys ) were a British band originally formed in late 1964, in Southampton, Hampshire, England. They recorded singles beginning in 1965 in the transitional Beat to psychedelic music genre, later known as ...

and King Crimson but had a his own Christmas number twos

How Wonderful You Are "How Wonderful You Are" is a song by Gordon Haskell. It was released as a single in the Christmas period of 2001 after mass promotion by BBC Radio 2 where it became a favourite of listeners after being featured by the drive-time presenter Johnni ...

in 2001 becoming

BBC Radio 2 BBC Radio 2 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. It is the most popular station in the United Kingdom with over 15 million weekly listeners. Since launching in 1967, the station broadcasts a wide range of content. ...

Most requested song ever. * William Charles Wentworth, Australian explorer and statesman, died in Wimborne in 1872. * Electric Wizard, stoner rock/

doom metal Doom metal is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music that typically uses slower tempos, low-tuned guitars and a much "thicker" or "heavier" sound than other heavy metal genres.K. Kahn-Harris, ''Extreme Metal: Music and Culture on the Edge'' ...

band

References

External links

Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory
by Rev.Thomas Perkins. A Short History of Their Foundation and a Description of Their Buildings
Census dataWimborne MinsterWimborne Town CouncilWimborne Drama – local Am Dram Group
{{Authority control Market towns in Dorset Towns in Dorset Burial sites of the Beaufort family