THE SAXON CATHEDRAL & ABBEY
The early history of pre-saxon Christian activity at Sherborne has become obscured by the mists of time but it is possible that a Celtic Christian church on a site which has since become the town was called 'Lanprobi' - there is much argument about the precise location of Lanprobi.

In AD 705 King Ine of Wessex made Sherborne, the capital of his kingdom, a bishopric when he appointed his kinsman Aldhelm as the first bishop of the West Saxons. Although St Aldhelm was an energetic builder, little remains of his original church at Sherborne which was probably a simple stone building located on the site of the later Church of All Hallows to the west of the present Abbey. The fabric of the present day Abbey preserves parts of later Saxon rebuilding.

St Wulfsin (Wulfsige III), the 20th Bishop of Sherborne, replaced the cathedral chapter of secular clergy with Benedictine monks in 998 and he became became the first abbot of the new monastery.

THE MEDIEVAL ABBEY
The Bishopric of Sherborne was transferred to Old Sarum (modern Salisbury) in 1075 but the Saxon Cathedral remained the abbey church of the monastery until the Henry VIII's Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. The bishop remained the titular head of the monastery until 1122 when Sherborne was made an independent abbey by Roger de Caen, Bishop of Salisbury.

SHERBORNE ABBEY & THE DOMESDAY BOOK The Bishop appears to be the temporal lord of Sherborne but nine manors which he held in the area appear to have been reserved for the monks whose Abbot he was. The Bishop and the monks are treated as a body, a corporation acting in concert. The entry for Sherborne in the Domesday Book is also unique in that it provides the only reference to William the Conqueror's sons. It concerns some land at Stalbridge to the east and tells how William Rufus ('the Red ') took the possession of the property of the Church of Sherborne without the consent of the Bishop or the monks;- De eadem etiam terra tenet Manaeses iii Virgatas quas W. filius regis tulit ab ecclesia sine consenu episcopi et monachorum.

THE SHERBORNE MISSAL is a magnificent English illuminated manuscript was written between c.1396 - 1407 for Richard Mitford, Bishop of Salisbury and Robert Bruning, Abbot of Sherborne.It is now in the British Library.

In medieval times, the nave of the Abbey Church was used for parish services taken by secular priests who were appointed by the Abbot. In the 14^th, a new church, All Hallows, was built against the west end of the Abbey as a chapel-of ease for the town. The Abbey remained the legal parish church of Sherborne and ceremonies such as baptism and burials still had to be performed there.

In 1437 there was a quarrel between the abbot and the townsmen about the right to have a font in All Hallows. Stones which had been reddened by the Great Fire resulting from rioting are still visible in the choir.

THE DISSOLUTION OF THE ABBEY
The abbey was dissolved and surrendered to King Henry VIII as part of the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1539. The Abbot and monks were liberally pensioned off and the Abbey Church and other monastic property, including most of its lands, were sold to Sir John Horsey. Horsey sold the Abbey Church to the townspeople who moved there from All Hallows (which was subsequently demolished) in 1540. The western chapels were sold to the Governors of Sherborne School.

LYME REGIS,   Dorset
During the widening of the Buddle Bridge in 1913 and, when some cottages on the seaward side were removed to facilitate the widening, a stone-arched recess was discovered. The recess may have been the cell of a priest who collected tolls from users of the bridge and the dues on salt for the Abbot of Sherborne.

NETHER COMPTON,   Dorset
The Abbey owned the village of Nether Compton three miles to the north-west and the monks may have been responded to popular demand for an outlying chapel there by commencing the building of the Church in the village during the 13th century.

OBORNE, Dorset
The Saxon King Edgar granted Oborne, only 1.6km (1 mile) to the north, to the Abbey in 970 in memory of Alfred the Great's elder brothers, both of whom ruled Wessex before him and were buried here.