Origin of the Society
The Market Cross, from Hutchins ‘History of Dorset’, Vol III, 1813
In 2012 Jane Daggett started the Stalbridge History Group, a small informal team that began to trace the history of the town and its older buildings, and went on to produce the Stalbridge History Trail, a visitor’s walking guide to the town (recently revised as The Stalbridge Heritage Trail).
When Jane stepped down, the group re-formed itself as The Stalbridge History Society, with a Constitution, a management committee, and a bank account! The objective of the Society is to promote an interest in the history of Stalbridge and its people within the local community. The first Open Meeting, to introduce the Society and encourage membership, was held in July 2016.
Our focus is on local history rather than tracing ancestry but sometimes the two paths cross, especially if we can fill a gap in our town’s story or where there is a danger of losing valuable information. Whatever the enquiry, we will try to help if we are able. We work alongside our colleagues who run The Stalbridge Archive Society.
When Jane stepped down, the group re-formed itself as The Stalbridge History Society, with a Constitution, a management committee, and a bank account! The objective of the Society is to promote an interest in the history of Stalbridge and its people within the local community. The first Open Meeting, to introduce the Society and encourage membership, was held in July 2016.
Our focus is on local history rather than tracing ancestry but sometimes the two paths cross, especially if we can fill a gap in our town’s story or where there is a danger of losing valuable information. Whatever the enquiry, we will try to help if we are able. We work alongside our colleagues who run The Stalbridge Archive Society.
Market Cross
From The Comprehensive Gazetteer of England & Wales, 1894-5:
Stalbridge, (at various times Staplebrigge, Staplebridge, Stapleford, Staplebrige etc,) a small town and a parish in Dorsetshire. The town stands on an affluent of the river Stour, with a station on the Somerset and Dorset railway, 116 miles from London, and 6 E by N of Sherborne. It has a post, money order, and telegraph office under Blandford. It was known at Domesday as Staplebridge, contains a beautiful ancient cross, about 30 feet high, and has four inns, two banks, and a fortnightly market on Thursday, and fairs on 6 May and 4 Sept. The parish includes four tithings. Acreage, 5882; population, 1705. There is a parish council of eleven members and a chairman. The manor belonged to Sherborne Abbey; passed to the Seymours, the Audleys, the Boyles, and the Walters, and belongs now to Lord Stalbridge. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; gross value, £900 with residence. Patron, Corpus Christi College, Cambridge. The church is a stone building in the Perpendicular style, and has been enlarged and restored at great cost. There are Congregational and Wesleyan chapels. Stalbridge gives the title of Baron to a member of the Grosvenor family.
The entire Stalbridge Estate was sold by auction in 1918 and the title became extinct with the death of Hugh Grosvenor, 2nd Baron Stalbridge in 1949. His only son and heir had been killed in a flying accident in 1930.
