There are services on at least four Sundays per month. Efforts are being made to establish a family service and Sunday school. There is a choir which sings monthly and at festival services. Jane Tailby, Team Vicar, lives in the parish.
Churchwardens
Gordon Heath 01722 716708
Clive Upton 01722 716237
See Rota page for details of services.
History
The earliest evidence of occupation still to be seen in Dinton is a seven acre Iron age earthwork called Wick Ball camp. In the late 9th century AD Alfred, King of Wessex founded Shaftesbury Abbey and Dinton was the most easterly manor under its control. There was a cell of six nuns here. The nuns who were here about the time that St. Mary's church was being built in the early 13th century were excommunicated. No one knows why! Dinton was recorded in the 1086 Domesday book as Domnitone.
Parish records recently found show the churchwardens accounts in the 16th century. In 1538 John Ings and Thomas Sheperd recorded receipts of 13 shillings for the Church Ale and 17 shillings for the Shepherd's Supper! In 1542 a preaching cross was brought from Fisherton, Salisbury to Dinton.
William and Henry Lawes were born on Dinton in the early 17th century. William was a Members of the King's Music from 1634 and Henry was a Gentleman (i.e., singer) of the Chapel Royal from 1626 and a Member of the King's Music from 1632. Edward Hyde, Earl of Clarendon, Charles II's Chancellor lived at Hydes House in the middle of the 1600's. His daughter Anne became King James the second's wife and his granddaughters Mary and Anne were also future English Queens.
The development of the irrigation of the water meadows in the early 1600's which continued till the early 20th century had a profound effect on sheep farming, Dinton's main occupation.
In 1689 the Wyndham family arrived. They owned 1000 acres and the Earl of Pembroke owned 1500 acres. William Wyndham rebuilt Dinton House (now Philipps House) in 1817. His son George emigrated to Australia and in 1830 five Wyndhams wrote home to England concerned about the conditions of agricultural workers here. These letters survive.
A momentous year in Dinton's history was 1875. Major renovation work was carried out in the church and Dinton Church of England school was built.
Phillips House, and early 19th Century Neo-Grecian house, and Dinton Park are now controlled by the National Trust. The house contains an impressive collection of Regency furniture and furnishings, and there is a variety of walks in the newly restored parkland.