Families
Like all villages, there are a number of long surviving local families.
From a study of the parish registers, a very rough view of the earliest record of a family name can be obtained :
Name Baptisms Marriages Burials Wills (see Wills)
Barge 1798 1796 1799
Bartlett 1799 1765 1784
Bonnel 1796 1770 1810
Bridle 1791 1732 1803
Legg 1793 1762 1793
Lock 1794 1754 1791
Richards 1794 1771 1810
Stickland 1623
Whittle 1682
Whitty 1793
Walbridge 1794 1783 1798
Woodward 1808 1776 1796
John Dunford - parish clerk, thatcher and leader of the West Gallery Quire in Winterbourne Abbas with his clarinet in 1897. (Source : Photograph [c1897] from Thomas Hardy's England (pub 1989) by Jo Draper and John Fowles. page 56)
Original photograph held by Dorchester Museum.
See Memorials for his plaque in the church
The Symes family - please use this link for Tony Chew's research