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Cerne Abbas
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"Is a small market-town, in the subdivision of Cerne, and hundred of Cerne, Totcombe and Modbury; 120 miles from London, and 7 from Dorchester, situated in a pleasant valley, surrounded by steep hills, and watered by the river Cerne, from which and an abbey it takes its name. The trades carried on here are brewing and malting, to a considerable extent; the manufacture of gloves, by Messrs. Frampton and Co.; and the making of parchment, by several individuals. Cerne is remarkable for the remains of its abbey, founded, according to William of Malmsbury, by St. Augustine. From the town ascends an immense chalk hill, terminated by a mountainous prominence, and crowned by a very large oblong entrenchment, called Trendle-hill; on the declivity of which may be traced a gigantic figure of a man, holding in his right hand a ponderous club: the figure is 180 feet in length, and formed by deep trenches cut In the grassy turf; the form of the figure is preserved by clearing out the trenches at occasional periods.The places of worship here are, the parish church, dedicated to St. Mary, situated in Abbey-street; and one chapel for the methodists. The living here is a perpetual curacy, in the patronage of Lord Rivers ; the present incumbent is the rev. John Davis. The market is on Wednesday; the fairs are, Mid-lent Monday, 28th, April and 2d October, chiefly for cattle and pigs. The parish contained, by the last returns, 1,060 inhabitants." Source: Pigot & Co.'s Directory of Dorset, 1830. Transcribed by Nigel Batty-Smith ©2003
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- Index to The Parish Book of Cerne Abbas; Abbey and After by Vivian & Patricia Vale.
- Michael Day provides photographs and bibliography for Cerne Abbas (St. Mary) on his Dorset Churches website
- The Dorset History Centre hold the Parish Registers for Cerne Abbas:
Baptisms: 1653-1958 Marriages: 1654-1687, 1695, 1697, 1710-1725, 1730, 1735, 1737, 1754-1965, 1966-1983 Burials: 1653-1985 (DHC ) - UK Genealogy Archives have a full transcript of the Marriages at Cerne Abbas, 1654-1812 taken from the Phillimore Marriages series.
- A transcript of the registers of
Baptisms 1663-1762 and 1763-1772
Marriages 1654-1756 and1763-1772
Burials 1653-1762 and1763-1772
are available on the Dorset OPC site
- A description of Cerne Abbas from the Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5 is available on the UK Genealogy Archives site
- A description of Cerne Abbas from "The Dorset Page"
- Ask for a calculation of the distance from Cerne Abbas to another place.
- The Dorset On-line Parish Clerks scheme (OPC) transcribe records relating to the county.
The Cerne Abbas pages contain many useful resources.
You can see maps centred on OS grid reference ST664012 (Lat/Lon: 50.809352, -2.478189), Cerne Abbas which are provided by:
- OpenStreetMap
- Google Maps
- StreetMap (Current Ordnance Survey maps)
- Bing (was Multimap)
- Old Maps Online
- National Library of Scotland (Old Ordnance Survey maps)
- Vision of Britain (Click "Historical units & statistics" for administrative areas.)
- English Jurisdictions in 1851 (Unfortunately the LDS have removed the facility to enable us to specify a starting location, you will need to search yourself on their map.)
- Magic (Geographic information) (Click + on map if it doesn't show)
- GeoHack (Links to on-line maps and location specific services.)
- All places within the same township/parish shown on an Openstreetmap map.
- Nearby townships/parishes shown on an Openstreetmap map.
- Nearby places shown on an Openstreetmap map.