Wonston being a large parish was divided into several manors; Cranborne, Norton, two Manors of Sutton and Wonston itself, Cranborne was granted to Hyde Abbey as part of the Hundred of Micheldever by King Edward the Elder. The Domesday Book also lists Hugh de Port as holding Cranborne  from Hyde Abbey, and his descendents, the St Johns in the 13th and 14th centuries and the Paulets in the 15th carried on as tenants. The manor was sub-let to the Bray boef family and their descendents from the 12th to 14th century and in the 16th Cranborne was passed to the Twyne family who also had the Manor of Norton.

Norton or Norton St Valery was in the hands of Odo of Winchester when the Domesday Survey was being executed and it was passed to Guy de St Valery when Henry I was on the throne. The manor carried on in the St Valery family until the early part of the 14th century when it was taken by the King and granted to Robert FitzPain.

Norton was granted to the chapel of St Elizabeth at Winchester and here it remained until the Dissolution of the Monasteries and in 1544 it was granted to Sir  Thomas Wriothesley by the King who alienated it to John Twyne in the same year.

Norton remained in the  Twyne family right up to the 17th century when it was passed to Dr Nicholas Love of Winchester College.

One of the two manors called Sutton was held by Odo of Winchester and the second was in the hands of Robert the son of Gerold, at the time of the Domesday Survey. Both manor has been held by Earl Godwin during the reign of Edward the Confessor.

The Scotney family acquired the manor in the 13th century from Robert, son of Gerold but the lands at Sutton had passed into the Sutton family by the 14th century and the manor of Sutton Scotney was owned by several people over the years.

The Sutton family held lands in Cranborne and Sutton Manors for many hundreds of years.

The other part of Sutton Manor which had belong to Odo at the time of Domesday passed into the St Valery family like the Manor of Norton and like Norton, Sutton belonged to the collegd of St Elizabeth in Winchester and was granted to Sir Thomas Wriothesley at the Dissolution. It was eventually acquired by John Twyne, and the hamlet of Sutton Scotney belonged to his family until it finally merged together with the manor of Sutton Scotney to the other part of Sutton Manor.

The church was damaged by fire but it has a 400 year old tower with a traceried window, and under the tower is a tablet erected in 1714 with this words

The best Benefactor to this church [burnt by fire)
Was (ten guineas, a gift by) John Wallop Esquire.

On the sunny wall are three dials which told the time of Mass in the days before clocks.

HISTORY OF HOLY TRINITY CHURCH
THE 'SWING RIOTS'

IMAGES OF WONSTON

The Lychgate at Holy Trinity Church		Holy Trinity Parish Church
Holy Trinity Wonston		Cottages at Wonston
One of the consecration crosses next to the church door		The bell of St Lukes, Sutton Scotney which was demolished in 1982
The Wonston Arms

THE DALLAS STORY

Drawing of Alex Robert Dallas

Revd Alexander Dallas was the rector of Wonston from 1828 to 1869, a member of the family that descended from James Dallas, Laird of Cantray in Ross-shire, in 1600  and whose ancestry dated from Willielmus de Dallas who lived in 1298 in the township of Dallas, Morayshire, Scotland.

George Dallas, the son of James, had been appointed the deputy Keeper of the Great Seal of Scotland. Alexander Dallas* father, Robert Charles Dallas, who was one of many  brothers and sisters who settled in various parts of the world including Jamaica and the USA.

Stewart George Dallas, was a well known lawyer in Jamaica and he had a son, Samuel Jackson Dallas, who was a member of the House of Assembly from 1830 to 1856 and Speaker from 1842 to 1849. The family had large estates in Jamaica and it was from this family that Dallas Mountain got its name.

Alexander James Dallas, settled in Pennsylvania and got into various political appointments and he became Secretary to the US Treasury from 1814 to 1816. He was also the father of George Mifflin Dallas, who was the Vice-President of the USA from 1844 to 1849, after whom the city of Dallas in Texas is named.

After Robert Charles Dallas had been working for a while as a lawyer in Jamaica and also in England he retired and took up writing mainly he wrote against the slave trade which was rife in Jamaica, especially on his father's estates. He was related by marriage to Lord Byron and he helped the famous poet gain fame by gathering together ready for publication a collection of his early poems.

But the relationship cooled as Byron became more famous and they both died in 1824 and it was Alexander who completed and published a biography by Byron which he had been started by his father before he died. When Byron died a cousin of Alexander succeeded to the Byron peerage.

Alexander who was born in 1791 never went to either Jamaica or the United  States but decided to take holy orders and was then appointed as Rector of Wonston in 1828, and in 1840 he went to Ireland for the first time and founded the Society for Irish Church Missions in 1843. He was also known for erecting 21 churches, 49 school houses, 12 parsonages and 4 orphanages with the Society. Alexander died on 12th December 1869 in Wonston and was interred in the churchyard there. In the church at Clifden, Connemara in Ireland there is an inscription in commemoration of him as have " laboured prayerfully for the salvation of the perishing Roman Catholics of Ireland".

Like his father Alexander was a keen writer and at the time he was at Wonston he set up a printing press under the guidance of James Shayler and employed a group of men and boys to print and publish a number of religious tracts which he had written. He was married in 1818 to Marianne and had five children, one of which married the Revd Francis Seymour and their eldest son, Edward Hamilton Seymour became the 16th Duke of Somerset. Alexandar married again in 1849 to Jane and she survived him and it was her who published a comprehensive account of his life in 1871




The Revd. Alexander Dallas was married twice. First in 1818 to Marianne by whom he had five children, one of whom married the Revd. Francis Seymour and their eldest son, Edward Hamilton Seymour, became 16th Duke of Somerset. He married his second wife, Jane, in 1849. She survived him and published a comprehensive account of his life in 1871.

MEMORIALS TO THE DALLAS FAMILY