England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Hammoon St Paul

The Parish

The parish of Hammoon lies in northern Dorset roughly 2 miles east of small market town of Sturminster Newton and a similar distance north of the A367 road which links Sturminster Newton with Blandford Forum. Hammoon is a very small and compact village sitting on the southern banks of the River Stour, a single lane passes through and most properties lie either along it or dead-end side lanes to both east & west. Most of the parish acreage sits upon the flood-plain of the Stour consequently it largely consists of pastures with some small patches of arable on drier land. Modern developments have come and gone, a branch railway line between Sturminster Newton & Blandford Forum having closed and been largely dismantled. Hammoon is drained southeastwards by the Stour which passes through Wimborne Minster before turning east to Poole Harbour and the English Channel. Hammoon is sited at around 40 metres above the sea, to the southeast views are dominated by Hambledon Hill topped by its Neolithic camp and summiting at 190 metres the highest ground around. Hammoon was one of Dorset's smallest parishes covering just 630 acres and supporting barely 50 parishioners. In Domesday times Hammoon was equally small and rural, a holding of William de Mohun offering 4 ploughs, meadows & pastures and a mill.

The Church

St Paul's church sits just tucked into one of those dead-end side lanes towards the northern end of the small village and quite close to the course of the Stour. As so often happens with small isolated rural churches St Paul has masonry surviving from the earliest times, the oldest fabric is the northern wall of the nave which is mid-12th century and Norman Romanesque in style. The remainder of the nave dates from the early part of the 13th century in Early English Gothic. That vigorous rebuilding of the southern part of the nave coincided with the construction of today's chancel, also E.E. and roughly mid-13th century. A curiosity of the church is that the chancel was built out of axis with the nave and Pevsner speculates this may have been due to the removal of a southern aisle despite no visible evidence for there ever having been one. A thorough restoration of 1885 made quite a few changes, rebuilding the western end of the nave in a grey stone (ugly says Pevsner), installing a new chancel arch and adding the timber, tile-hung bell turret that crowns the western end. A small space sits outside the churchyard gates allowing a single vehicle to park without causing a blockage, the churchyard is compromised by trees from the north but the preferred aspects are available for the photographer.