Sherborne …past
Founded as a cathedral school in 705AD by St Aldhelm, then re-founded in 1550 after the dissolution by King Edward VI, Sherborne School is one of the oldest schools in the country. Nearly 350 years later, John and Charlotte Wingfield Digby, whose family seat was Sherborne Castle, founded Sherborne School for Girls. Education was undoubtedly a Sherborne ‘industry’ – and remains so – but it was not the only one on which the town’s 6000 inhabitants depended for their livelihoods in the 19th century.
A silk mill opened in Westbury in the 18th century, became the town’s largest employer until competition from foreign imports forced its closure in 1885, leading to local unemployment. A Congregational Minister called Joseph Ogle, together with two partners, funded the mill’s reopening two years later. By switching the mill from silk throwing to weaving it into fabric, soon 200 employees, many of them women, were clocking in daily for work. Even Queen Victoria was a customer, ordering lengths of silk for her Diamond Jubilee in 1897. Ogle’s achievements for Sherborne were remarkable. He built 90 cottages for his workers, stood on the Board of Health, publicised the plight of Dorset’s struggling rural churches and chapels – going everywhere by bicycle.
The teetotal Reverend Ogle might well have disapproved of the Dorsetshire Brewery, whose two chimneys towered over Long Street, their barrels stamped with its trademark of St George’s Cross with a crook. Its owner from 1890 was Colonel Walter Baxter, proud owner of Sherborne’s first motorcar, bought from Edwin Childs motor business, also in Long Street, which along with Cheap Street were the town’s secular heart, mixing timber-framed Tudor with Georgian brickwork and provincial Victorian pomposity.
It was the town’s tradesmen and craftsmen – many of them Non-Conformist – who truly embraced the new century. A good example of this is Henry Durrant, in 1892 his new grocery and provision merchant faced the Conduit on the corner of Cheap Street. Durrant became Chairman of the Urban District Council four times. Durrant’s Close, the sheltered housing on the site of the Workhouse is named after him. Similar examples of men and women blessed with ambition and energy abounded elsewhere in Sherborne, reinvigorating it and readying the town for the changes ahead.
Sherborne ...present
Sherborne Abbey: Founded as a Saxon cathedral in 705, then a parish church since 1539, visitors admire its fan-vaulted roof, it also hosts the Sherborne Abbey Music Festival in late April. sherborneabbeyfestival.org
Sherborne Castle: Built by Sir Walter Raleigh 1594, Sherborne Castle has been the Wingfield Digby family seat since 1617, its 42 acres of Gardens and Pleasure Grounds were designed by Capability Brown. sherbornecastle.com
The Sherborne: This Palladian style house becomes the town’s new arts venue in 2023, it houses the Thornhill Mural by Sir James Thornhill who painted the dome of St Paul’s Cathedral. sherbornehousedorset.org.uk
