Stinsford

Thomas Hardy's monument

There has been worship at the site since at least Norman times, but the only remaining parts of the earliest structure are the sculpture of St Michael, inside the west wall of the south aisle, and the restored Purbeck Marble font.[4]

St Michael's was the local church of novelist and poet Thomas Hardy and he was baptised here. Stinsford is the original 'Mellstock' of Hardy's novels Under the Greenwood Tree and Jude the Obscure.

Hardy's heart was buried in the churchyard in 1928, alongside the grave of his first wife, Emma Lavinia Gifford, who died in 1912 and his second wife, Florence Dugdale, who died in 1937. The churchyard also contains the grave of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who died in 1972 and had arranged for his burial to be close to Hardy whom he admired.[5][6] Also here are the remains of the actor and dramatist William O'Brien (died 1815) and his wife Lady Susan Fox-Strangways.[7]

Stinsford has a six-a-side football team which plays in the Dorset six-a-side leagues. The team is noted for its luminous orange strip and has provided players who have later moved on to play for football teams such as Yeovil Town F.C.[8]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Stinsford.

• Stinsford Parish Council