Wimborne Minster

Wimborne Minster (often referred to as Wimborne, /ˈwɪmbɔːrn/) is a market town in Dorset in South West England, and the name of the Church of England church in that town. It lies at the confluence of the River Stour and the River Allen, 5 miles (8 km) north of Poole, on the Dorset Heaths, and is part of the South East Dorset conurbation. According to Office for National Statistics data the population of the Wimborne Minster built-up area as of 2014^[update] was 15,552.^[1][2]

Governance

The town and its administrative area are served by eleven councillors plus one from the nearby ward of Cranfield.

After

Wimborne has one of the foremost collections of 15th-, 16th- and 17th-century buildings in

Wimborne Minster Church

This is a

The model town is one of the largest and longest-established model towns in England. It depicts Wimborne at the time the model was made, in the 1950s. It is at 1:10 scale, resulting in the model of the Minster being several feet high. The model shop windows accurately show the goods which the real shops were selling at the time. The exhibition also includes a model railway based on Thomas the Tank Engine, which was opened by Christopher Awdry, and expanded in 2014.

Events

At weekends and national holidays, the town crier can be seen in the main square and around the Minster.^[6] The legacy and position of the town crier date back to the English Civil War. The town has a large civil war reenactment society, which performs every year.

The town has a well-established and large market, the Wimborne Market. The market is held on a Friday, Saturday and Sunday. It was previously located in the town centre but moved out several years ago to a site on the edge of town to accommodate its size.^[7]

Every year Wimborne hosts the longest fireworks display in Dorset, as part of its

Every two years in mid-August, the Park Initiative, an interchurch charity working on Leigh Park estate, holds a community event called "Alive in the Park" in the centre of the estate using a large marquee.[9]

Wimborne Minster Folk Festival

Every summer in June the town holds the

Dumpton School is located nearby. The nearby first schools of Hayeswood and Colehill serve Wimborne.

Healthcare

Wimborne Cottage Hospital

• Annie Mary Lindsay was matron from 1895^{[14] [15]}until at least 1911.^{[16] [17]}Lindsay trained at The London Hospital under Matron Eva Luckes between 1886-1888.^[16][18]

Media

Local news and television programmes are provided by BBC South and ITV Meridian. Television signals are received from the Rowridge TV transmitter^[19] and the local relay transmitter situated in Winterborne Stickland. ^[20] BBC West and ITV West Country can also be received from the Mendip TV transmitter. ^[21]

The town’s local radio stations are BBC Radio Solent on 96.1 FM, Heart South on 102.3 FM, Nation Radio South Coast on 106.6 FM, Greatest Hits Radio South on 105.8 FM and Radio Wimborne, a community radio station that broadcast on 94.6 FM. ^[22]

Local newspapers that served the town are the Dorset Echo and Bournemouth Daily Echo.

Clubs

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The local football club Wimborne Town F.C. play in the Southern Football League.

In rugby union, Wimborne R.F.C. has been in existence in its present form since 1950 and is based in Leigh Park, Gordon Road on the eastern side of the town.

Cricket has been played in Wimborne since at least 1793, when the club was known as Hanham's Cricket Club, playing on the green in the centre of town from 1860. In 2010, the club moved to its new ground at The Leaze as part of the planning application which allowed Waitrose to build a new supermarket on the site of the original Wimborne Cricket Club. The club's 4 adult teams play in the Dorset Cricket League and the 1st XI have won the Dorset Premier League title in 1997, 2012, 2016 and 2018. Dorset County Cricket Club played home matches at Wimborne sporadically from the 1957 until 1979 before returning in 2018 to Wimborne's current ground at The Leaze.

Economy

The aerospace company

Buses now serve as the only means of public transport to and from Wimborne. Wilts & Dorset subsidiary Morebus operates half-hourly routes 4 to Poole and 13 to Bournemouth.

Twin towns

Wimborne Minster is

• Ochsenfurt, Bavaria, Germany^[25]
• Valognes, Normandy, France^[26]

Notable people

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• Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of the World Wide Web^[27]
• Lieutenant William Cox (1764–1837), Australian pioneer born in Wimborne.
• John Creasey, English crime writer, lived at "Cattistock", Fernlea Avenue, Ferndown during the 1940s.^[28]
• Montague Druitt, suspect in the Jack the Ripper murders
• Robert Fripp, guitarist in prog rock band King Crimson
• Jimmy Glass, former professional footballer
• George Gray, Professor of Organic Chemistry at the University of Hull
• Isaac Gulliver, English smuggler
• Thomas Hardy, lived in Avenue Road, where he wrote A Pair of Blue Eyes (1873), commemorated by a blue plaque
• Josephine Kermode, Manx poet and playwright, better known by her pen name Cushag, lived the last five years of her life in Wimborne
• Saint Leoba (c. 710 – 28 September 782) was an oblate at Wimborne Minster
• George Douglas-Hamilton, 10th Earl of Selkirk (1906–1994), Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and Commissioner for Singapore and Southeast Asia, was born at Merley House
• Walter Parke (1891–1914), first-class cricketer and British Army officer
• Matthew Prior (1664–1721), English diplomat and poet, was born in Wimborne and lived there during his early childhood.^[29]
• Walter Shaw (1868–1937), former Chief Justice of the Straits Settlements and Chairman of the Shaw Commission
• Al Stewart, Scottish musician and singer-songwriter, grew up in the town.
• Gordon Haskell, singer-songwriter, grew up in the town and went to Queen Elizabeth Grammar School.
• William Charles Wentworth, Australian explorer and statesman, died in Wimborne in 1872.
• Electric Wizard, stoner rock/doom metal band

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wimborne Minster.

• Wimborne Minster and Christchurch Priory by Rev.Thomas Perkins. A Short History of Their Foundation and a Description of Their Buildings
• Census data
• Wimborne Minster
• Wimborne Town Council
• Wimborne Drama – local Am Dram Group