It is our intention to include articles here relating to West Stour village.
At present we are researching the WW1 soldiers who gave their lives and appear on local memorials.
In May 2021 we completed the stories of WW1 soldiers featured on Gillingham and Milton-on-Stour memorials. Please contact the Museum if you have any story to tell about West Stour life.
The website manager reserves the right to include/amend or reject such articles and if included, to remove them at a future date.
Any articles received and accepted will be placed in the Museum's Digital Archive.
1895 Kelly’s Directory of Dorsetshire
WEST STOWER (or Stour) is a small parish, pleasantly situated on the river Stour and high road from Shaftesbury to Sherborne and Yeovil, 4 miles south-west from Gillingham station on the London and South Western railway, and 5½ miles west from Shaftesbury, in the Northern division of the country, hundred of Redlane, petty sessional division, union and county court district of Shaftesbury, rural deanery of Shaftesbury (Shaftesbury portion), archdeaconry of Dorset and diocese of Salisbury.
The church of St. Mary is a stone structure, having an ancient Decorated chancel, a modern nave, south porch and a square embattled tower of Perpendicular date, containing 3 bells; it has an organ and a gallery at the west end. The register dates from the year 1654. The living is a chapelry, annexed with East Stower to the vicarage of Gillingham, average tithe rent-charge £1,146, joint gross yearly value £1,152, net £318, in the gift of the Bishop of Salisbury, and held since 1891 by the Rev. Sidney Edmund Davies, M.A. of Worcester College, Oxford, rural dean of Shaftesbury, and surrogate, who reside at Gillingham. Here are small chapels for Baptists and Primitive Methodists.
J.K.D. Wingfield-Digby esq. M.P. of Sherborne Castle is the principal landowner. The soil is sand and clay: subsoil, stone and gravel. The land is chiefly in pasture. The area is 998 acres; rateable value, £1,854 ; the population in 1891 was 158.
West Stour War Memorial
The Memorial plaque in St.Mary's Church lists three soldiers who gave their lives in WW1.
George Beale
Charlie Trim
Tom Wilson.
TRIM Charles George
9606 Private Charles George Trim, 5th Battalion, Dorsetshire Regiment died on 17 November 1915 age 22.
Charles was baptised on 26 July 1893 and his parents were Eden Charles Trim and Annie Maria Trim (née Kendall). His mother Annie died in 1900. Eden re-married in March 1902 to Bessie Georgina Turner.
His siblings were Roland Harold (b1897), Marion (b1898), Louisa Annie was born in 1903 but died in 1904, Mabel Emily was born in 1906 and Beatrice Doris Emma born in 1907 died in 1908.
Charlie, as he was known, was a blacksmith by trade. He enlisted at Dorchester on 18 November 1913 and was previously in the Territorial Force of the 4th Dorset Regiment. He was on home service until 23 August 1915 when he was sent to Gallipoli. It was there that he died from pneumonia on HMS Hospital Ship “Dover Castle”, Alexandria. His 14/15 Star and Victory medals were sent to his father.
He is remembered on the Helles Memorial in Turkey and on the memorial plaque in West Stour Church.