Sherborne is a
market town in northwest
Dorset, England. It is on the
River Yeo and
A30 road, on the edge of the
Blackmore Vale east of
Yeovil.
40.8% of the population is retired. Sherborne is famous for its history, including its
abbey,
castles,
manor house and private schools. The picturesque town is a popular, though relatively unknown,
tourist town.
Much of the town, including many
medieval and
Georgian buildings, is built from distinctive
ochre ham stone, including the Abbey.
The town is served by
Sherborne railway station.
History
The town was named
scir burne by the
Saxon inhabitants, a name meaning "clear stream" (see:
Bourne (placename)).
thumb|left|Sherborne AbbeyThe town was made the capital of
Wessex, one of the seven Saxon kingdoms of England, and
King Alfred's elder brothers
King Ethelbert and
King Ethelbald are buried in the abbey. In 705 the
diocese was split between Sherborne and
Winchester, and
King Ine founded an Abbey for
St Aldhelm, the first bishop of Sherborne. The Bishop's seat was moved to
Old Sarum in 1075 and the church at Sherborne became a
Benedictine Monastery. In the 15th century the church was deliberately burnt down during tensions between the town and the monastery, and was rebuilt between 1425 and 1504, though some of the
Norman structure remains. In 1539 the monastery was bought by Sir
John Horsey and became a conventional church. Sherborne was for many centuries the centre of a
hundred of the same name.
thumb|The ConduitIn the 12th century
Roger de Caen,
Bishop of Salisbury and
Chancellor of England, built a fortified palace in Sherborne. The palace was destroyed in 1645 by
General Fairfax, and the ruins are owned by
English Heritage.
In 1594
Sir Walter Raleigh built an Elizabethan mansion in the grounds of the old palace, today known as
Sherborne Castle.
Sherborne was also home to Captain
Christopher Levett, a
Yorkshire native who came to the West Country as His Majesty's
Woodward of
Somersetshire, and who remained in Sherborne as he turned to a career as a naval captain and early explorer of
New England.
Education
There has been a school in Sherborne since the time of
King Alfred, who was educated there. The school was refounded in 1550 as
King Edward's public school, using some of the old abbey buildings, though it is now known simply as
Sherborne School.
The school remains one of the top fee-paying schools in
Britain, boasts numerous successful alumni, including
Alan Turing,
Jeremy Irons,
Chris Martin and
John le Carré. Until 1992 there were also two
Grammar Schools, Foster's School for boys and Lord Digby's School for girls. The tradition of education within the town was continued with the founding of
Sherborne School For Girls (now known as Sherborne Girls) in 1895, another leading Independent School. Eminent past pupils of Sherborne Girls include soprano
Emma Kirkby actress
Maria Aitken, novelist
Santa Montefiore, psychotherapist and founder of the charity Kids Company,
Camilla Batmanghelidjh. More recently, the other senior schools established in Sherborne are
The Gryphon School and the Sherborne International College (for children from overseas).
thumb|Sherborne HouseHistorical Buildings
Other notable historical buildings in the town include the
Almshouses of
Saints
John the Baptist and
John the Evangelist, founded in their current form in 1438 and expanded in the
Victorian Era in indistinguishable
medieval style architecture. The
conduit,
Hospice of
St Julian, and
Lord Digby's school, now known as Sherborne House (designed by
Benjamin Bastard) are also well preserved old buildings in the town.
References in Literature and Popular Culture
thumb|The Almshouses- John le Carré's novel A Murder of Quality takes place largely in a fictionalized version of Sherborne: Carne. The house in which the first murder is committed is Hyle House, in the south west of the town.
International relations
Twin towns
Sherborne is a founding member of the
Douzelage, a
town twinning association of 23 towns across the
European Union. This active town twinning began in 1991 and there are regular events, such as a produce market from each of the other countries and festivals.
