England & Wales Hardwicke Marriage Index
Marriages 1754 - 1837
Wynford Eagle St Lawrence

The Parish

The small parish of Wynford Eagle, created as a chapelry of Toller Fratrum and resubsumed in 1813, lies in southwestern Dorset not too far from its English Channel coast. Wynford Eagle is located about 6 miles northwest of the town of Dorchester in the chalk downlands of Dorset. Wynford Eagle is not much more than a hamlet, a collection of farms in rolling chalk country. The hamlet sits in the base of a chalk valley with high downs on all sides, a lost and lonely place served only by a winding lane which heads south down the valley from Maiden Newton on the A356 (Dorchester to Crewkerne road). The main economic activity of the parish would have been sheep farming but nowadays this is shared with arable crops. Wynford Eagle's valley is drained by a small chalk stream which heads north to join the River Frome at Maiden Newton and from there heads to the sea via Poole Harbour. Wynford Eagle is sited at around 110 metres above the sea but the hills to east and west rise to almost double that height. By Dorset standard the parish covered a substantial area (larger in acreage than its mother parish Toller Fratrum was left with), it covered almost 1,800 acres but supported just 130 parishioners. In Domesday times Wynford eagle was held by one William of Eu and was a more prosperous and populated place, it supported 11 ploughs and boasted meadows, pastures and woodland as well as a mill.

The Church

St Lawrence's church sits to the west of the notional centre of Wynford Eagle, across the stream from the main group of farms and on the southern side of the branch lane which climbs the downs to the local high spot of Egerton Hill. The building is relatively modern being a Victorian replacement built in 1842, it does include a few features from its mediaeval predecessor but is largely of the "Commissioners' type" as Pevsner declares. The chancel arch is from the prior building and indicates a Perpendicular predecessor but the current building receives only a modest review from Pevsner. The church stands in a big wide open landscape of chalk downland, a low stone wall protects and access is by a metal gateway slightly down the footpath to the site's western end. There are no restrictions to photography in this open site.