England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Evershot St Osmund

The Parish

The chapelry of Evershot, its mother parish being Frome St Quintin, lies in northwestern Dorset roughly 7 miles northeast of the market town of Beaminster. Evershot sits about 1 mile west of the A37 road which links Yeovil in Somerset with Dorchester. Evershot is a crossroads village largely built around a T-junction of lanes and sitting within a dry valley forming one of the sources, below the village, of the River Frome. At one time Evershot was of sufficient importance to be able to hold a weekly market by that has long since ceased and it is a mere village today. The parish sits within the Jurassic limestone series with the underlying rock type limestone with shelly deposits, the soils are more suited to pastoral farming methods which dominate in the area. Modern developments have come to the parish, the railway line between Dorchester & Yeovil passing through the southern portion of the parish. Whilst the valley in which the village sits is dry, the Frome rises merely a few hundred yards down-slope, after trending south to the northern edges of Dorchester the Frome turns more eastwards to reach the English Channel through Poole Harbour. Evershot is sited between 170 & 190 metres above the sea as it rises a little up each side of the dry valley, land rises to the west to 223 metres on Horsey Knap, the highest ground around. This area of northern Dorset is a network of small parishes and Evershot chapelry is comparable in size to many that surround it, roughly 1,400 acres of Frome St Quintin parish were assigned to Evershot chapelry and they would have supported a population of around 550 parishioners. Evershot is not mentioned in Domesday Book.

The Church

St Osmund's church sits on the northern side of Fore Street, the main west to east running lane, and towards the western end of the village. The church has little of the medieval still original and in situ as the bulk of the church was totally rebuilt in two phases in the mid 19th century. Enough of the original fabric was reused to identify 12th century reused fabric in the chancel arch and the responds to the tower arch. Two main features were left relatively untouched during the rebuilding, both dated to the 15th century and in the late Perpendicular style of that century, both the northern aisle and the western tower remain from that late medieval period. The first phase of rebuilding fell between 1852 & 1853 and rebuilt the nave, southern aisle and the uppermost stages of the tower together with its iconic stair turret topped with a dome and pinnacle. This phase was followed a decade later by work to rebuild the chancel adding elaborate flourishes such as the arcaded parapet and crocketed pinnacles. Fore Street broadens to the east of the site allowing on-street parking outside some picturesque thatched cottages. A tight churchyard removes any viewpoints from within it, the better views are from the roadside to both east and west.