There are two silk-throwing mills, employing about 600 hands. The making of silk twist and buttons is also largely carried on, and some of the female inhabitants are employed in sewing gloves for the manufacturers in Yeovil. The population of the town in 1851 was 5,242, and in 1861 5,523, but the parish contained 5,793. It consists of several good streets, irregularly laid out, and is divided by a small stream into two parts, of which one is called Castle Town. The principal public buildings are the townhall and market house, situated near the church; a handsome new building called the Yeatman's Hospital; the grammar school of Edward VT.; the venerable almshouse of SS. John Baptist and Evangelist; a savings-bank, two commercial branch banks, and the union workhouse. Two newspapers, the Sherborne and Taunton Journal and the Sherborne and Yeovil Mercury, are published in the town. Quarter sessions for the county are regularly held, and petty sessions for the town are held in the townhall once a month. It is a polling-place for the county elections, and the head of a Poor-law Union, comprising 30 parishes, of which 23 are in Dorsetshire, and 7 in Somersetshire. The town and adjacent district are under the management of a local board of health. The principal seats in the neighbourhood are Sherborne Lodge, Ven House, Milborne Port, Compton House, Holnest House, and Leweston House. The subsoil is oolitic rock, and the cultivated land very fertile. The living is a vicarage* in the diocese of Salisbury, value £269, in the patronage of the crown. The church, dedicated to St. Mary, was partly rebuilt by Abbot Bradford in the reign of Henry VI. It measures 207 feet in length, by 102 feet wide, and has a tower rising from the centre 114 feet high, and containing a peal of eight large bells, one of which weighs 52 cwt. 23 lbs., and was a present from Cardinal Wolsey. In the interior are several painted windows and monuments, one of which bears an epitaph by Pope, also a monument in the S. transept to the memory of John Earl of Bristol, by Nost, erected in 1698 at a cost of £1,500. This fabric has recently been restored under the direction of Messrs. Carpenter and Slater, at a cost of about £35,000, mainly by the liberality of the late Earl of Digby, and of his heir G. D. Wingfield Digby, Esq. The Wesleyans, Primitive Methodists, and Independents have each a place of worship. The charities produce altogether about £2,000 per annum, of which £1,000 is the endowment of the free grammar school founded by Edward VI. in 1550. The school-house has been formed out of the old abbey, which has recently been entirely restored, having been presented to the town for this purpose by the late Earl of Digby. It is under a head master and ten assistant-masters, and has four exhibitions of £40 a year, tenable for four years, at either of the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge. There are also Foster's bluecoat school, with an income from endowment of £80; the Earl of Digby's school for girls, endowed with £50 per annum; Woodman's school, besides National, British and Foreign, and infant schools. The parochial authorities have the privilege of presenting three boys to Christ's Hospital in London. On the S. side of the churchyard is the hospital or almshouses of St. John the Baptist, refounded by Henry VI. for 24 poor men, with an income of £1,000, and a chapel in which Divine service is performed daily. An extra mural cemetery has lately been formed at Horsecastle. The market days are Thursday and Saturday, and every alternate Thursday for cattle. Fairs are held on the 8th May, 18th and 26th July, chiefly for cattle, and a large fair on the Monday following 10th October."
"OVERCOMBE, a tything in the parish of Sherborne, county Dorset, near Sherborne."
"PINFOLD, a tything in the parish of Sherborne, county Dorset, 2 miles from Sherborne."
