Castleton Revisited

We are pleased to bring to the website the results of two sets of additional research that have taken place over the last several years and both concern the parish of Castleton on the eastern edge of Sherborne.

In 1975 a young man named Mervyn Medlycott (later Sir Mervyn Medlycott), began the long-term task of recording Memorial Inscriptions for the newly formed Somerset and Dorset Family History Society of which he was the first Secretary and Chairman. He started on his home patch of Sherborne visiting churches and churchyards in the town and all the immediately surrounding parishes. One of these parish churches was at Castleton and in July 2020 three members of the society took on the task of having a look again at Sir Mervyn’s recordings of MIs to see if any further memorials have appeared since and you can see the results here first in location order and here in alphabetical order. It was also decided to include as much information as possible about the area and the people who have played a role in Castleton’s past for anyone interested but unable to visit in person.

In 2010 Michael Hanson wrote a book entitled ‘Voices that be gone’ Reconstructing the Victorian Parish of Castleton, Dorset 1834-1901 which was then published by the SDFHS and sold through the bookshop. Now he has included additional research with a web-based publication entitled NEW ‘Voices that be gone’: Residents of Castleton, Dorset 1834-1911 & 1939, which can be viewed here.

Michael has created a database on the lives of over 800 residents which can be viewed  as Appendix – Part 1: Residents 1834-1901 and as Appendix – Part 2: Additional Residents 1834-1911 & 1939. Each resident’s entry needs to be read over two pages.  Extracts from the original book not updated in the NEW documents can be viewed here.