England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Bryanston St Martin

The Parish

The parish of Bryanston lies in eastern central Dorset roughly a half mile west, as the crow flies, from the market town of Blandford Forum, a journey of over 2 miles due to the presence of the River Stour between them. Bryanston sits a similar distance west of the former route of the A350 road linking Shaftesbury with Poole, that road now bypassing Blandford Forum to its east rather than passing through that town. At the time of this transcript Bryanston was a simple estate village dominated by the estate of Bryanston Hall, the latest version of which was completed in 1894. Today that hall is now Bryanston School and most of the estate, including the former parish church, is now given over to school buildings in what is a self-contained and secure educational campus. The parish would have been a simple farming parish with arable fields on dryer ground and pasture alongside the Stour. From the few estate cottages a bluff drops steeply to the flood-plain as woodland which would have been coppiced for woodland products. Bryanston is drained southeastwards by the Stour which eventually turns east to pass through Poole Harbour to the English Channel.  Bryanston is sited between 40 metres above the sea at its former parish church to 90 metres amongst the southernmost estate cottages, land rises away from the river westwards onto chalk downland which generally tops out at around 150 metres. Covering just under 1,700 acres Bryanston parish was fairly typically sized for the area and would have supported a population of close to 150 parishioners. Domesday Bryanston was largely held by Count Robert of Mortain and recorded just 5 ploughs, meadows, pastures & woodland and also held a mill.

The Church

St Martin's church was declared redundant in 1876 becoming the school's Portman Chapel, the church is generally out-of-bounds to the general public except for organised events or with the expressed permission of the school. The church replaced a medieval church of the mid 16th century in 1745, it comes with a single chamber of combined nave and chancel and is topped with a western cupola rather than a tower. Many of the windows are in the Venetian style.