Stinsford 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 southwest

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, about east of Dorchester. The parish includes the settlements of Higher and Lower Bockhampton. The name Stinsford may derive from ,

Old English Old English (, ), or Anglo-Saxon, is the earliest recorded form of the English language, spoken in England and southern and eastern Scotland in the early Middle Ages. It was brought to Great Britain by Anglo-Saxon settlers in the mid-5th ...

for a limited area of pasture. In the

2011 United Kingdom census A census of the population of the United Kingdom is taken every ten years. The 2011 census was held in all countries of the UK on 27 March 2011. It was the first UK census which could be completed online via the Internet. The Office for Nationa ...

, the parish had a population of 334. The parish has five large country houses - Birkin House, Frome House, Kingston Maurward House, the

Elizabethan era The Elizabethan era is the epoch in the Tudor period of the history of England during the reign of Queen Elizabeth I (1558–1603). Historians often depict it as the golden age in English history. The symbol of Britannia (a female personific ...

Old Manor House and Stinsford House. Much of the land in the parish is occupied by

Kingston Maurward College Kingston Maurward College is a college for land-based studies situated two miles east of Dorchester, Dorset, England. The college is a member of the Landex grou an association of institutions that provide courses in agriculture and horticulture ...

, a further education college.

St Michael's Church

There has been worship at the site since at least Norman times, but the only remaining parts of the earliest structure are the sculpture of

St Michael Michael (; he, מִיכָאֵל, lit=Who is like El od, translit=Mīḵāʾēl; el, Μιχαήλ, translit=Mikhaḗl; la, Michahel; ar, ميخائيل ، مِيكَالَ ، ميكائيل, translit=Mīkāʾīl, Mīkāl, Mīkhāʾīl), also ...

, inside the west wall of the south aisle, and the restored

Purbeck Marble Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone. Geology St ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mo ...

. St Michael's was the local church of novelist and poet

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 Wor ...

and he was baptised here. Stinsford is the original 'Mellstock' of Hardy's novels ''

Under the Greenwood Tree ''Under the Greenwood Tree: A Rural Painting of the Dutch School'' is a novel by the English writer Thomas Hardy, published anonymously in 1872. It was Hardy's second published novel, and the first of what was to become his series of Wessex n ...

'' and ''

Jude the Obscure ''Jude the Obscure'' is a novel by Thomas Hardy, which began as a magazine serial in December 1894 and was first published in book form in 1895 (though the title page says 1896). It is Hardy's last completed novel. The protagonist, Jude Fawley ...

''. Hardy's heart was buried in the churchyard in 1928, alongside the grave of his first wife,

Emma Lavinia Gifford Emma Lavinia Gifford (24 November 1840 – 27 November 1912) was an English writer and suffragist, who was the first wife of the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. Early life Emma Gifford was born in Plymouth, Devon, on 24 November 1840 The secon ...

, who died in 1912 and his second wife,

Florence Dugdale Florence Emily Dugdale (12 January 187917 October 1937) was an English teacher and children's writer, who was the second wife of the novelist and poet Thomas Hardy. She was credited as the author of Hardy's posthumously published biography, ''The ...

, who died in 1937. The churchyard also contains the grave of

Poet Laureate A poet laureate (plural: poets laureate) is a poet officially appointed by a government or conferring institution, typically expected to compose poems for special events and occasions. Albertino Mussato of Padua and Francesco Petrarca (Petrarch ...

Cecil Day-Lewis Cecil Day-Lewis (or Day Lewis; 27 April 1904 – 22 May 1972), often written as C. Day-Lewis, was an Irish-born British poet and Poet Laureate from 1968 until his death in 1972. He also wrote mystery stories under the pseudonym of Nicholas Bla ...

, who died in 1972 and had arranged for his burial to be close to Hardy whom he admired. Also here are the remains of the actor and dramatist

William O'Brien William O'Brien (2 October 1852 – 25 February 1928) was an Irish nationalist, journalist, agrarian agitator, social revolutionary, politician, party leader, newspaper publisher, author and Member of Parliament (MP) in the House of Commons ...

and his wife Lady Susan Fox-Strangways.

Football

Stinsford has a six-a-side football team which plays in the Dorset six-a-side leagues. The team is noted for its luminous orange strip and has provided players who have later moved on to play for

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

teams such as

Yeovil Town F.C. Yeovil Town Football Club is a professional association football club based in the town of Yeovil, Somerset, England. The team competes in the , the fifth tier of the English football league system. The club's home ground is Huish Park, built i ...

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References

External links

Stinsford Parish Council
Geography of Dorchester, Dorset Villages in Dorset {{Dorset-geo-stub