Gillingham

inc Milton-on-Stour, Sandley & Huntingford

St Mary the Virgin, Gillingham
© Jan Genge Kennedy 2003-2023

Gillingham is a market town and large parish in the Blackmore Vale area at the northern extremity of the county.  Only the small parishes of Silton and Bourton lie to the west and Motcombe to the east. The name Gillingham was used for the town in its 10th century Saxon charter, and also in an entry for 1016 in the annals, as the location of a battle between Edmund Ironside and the Vikings. In the Domesday Book in 1086 it is recorded as Gelingeham.

Gillingham became a local farming centre, gained the first grammar school in Dorset in 1516 and a silk mill in 1769. The arrival of the railwayin the 1850s brought prosperity and new industries including brickmaking, cheese production, printing, soap manufacture and at the end of the 19th century one of the first petrol engine plants in the country. There were once three flour mills, an extensive brewery, a bacon-curing establishment, brick, tile and drain-pipe works and a large dairy. A very large market was held every other Monday.

The church of St Mary the Virgin was, with the exception of the chancel rebuilt in 1838 although within are monuments dating from 1625. The registers start in 1559. There were also chapels for Baptists, Wesleyans and Primitive Methodists. There are several cemeteries.

In the 1820s, the artist John Constable stayed at Gillingham vicarage and, being impressed by the beauty of the countryside, executed several local sketches and paintings. His painting of Gillingham Bridge hangs in the Tate Gallery.

The village of Sandley in the parish was renowned for the Compton Horse Stud. The village of Milton-on-Stour has a small church dedicated to Saints Simon and Jude, Huntingford was also a separate village. The area of the parish is 7834 acres and the population in 1891 was 3003.

Pierston (aka Poerston, Preston, Pearstone) was formerly a manor, hamlet and farm. The manor was formerly divided into several tenements, held by three lives, and a widowhood, paying a rent to the lord. The farm consisted of 200 acres of arable, 120 pasture and 130 meadow. In 1319 a chantry chapel was built in the Pierston area (then a separate hamlet) its rector being Thomas de Grindeham. That building fell out of use at the Dissolution of the Monasteries in the 1530s, but is mentioned in a Parliamentary Commission of 1650 as 'A chapel now decayed and not used.' The actual site is not known, but it is thought to be somewhere in the region of Pierston House. Pierston is now considered part of Milton on Stour.

St Mary the Virgin, Gillingham
© Jan Genge Kennedy 2003-2023

The new Online Parish Clerk for Gillingham is Joy Waters

You can contact Joy by clicking on the link above which should generate a correctly addressed email.
Many thanks to Jan Kennedy for her assistance with Gillingham over many years.

St Mary the Virgin, Gillingham
© Jan Genge Kennedy 2003-2023

St Mary the Virgin, Gillingham
© Jan Genge Kennedy 2003-2023

Pierston House, Gillingham