STAFFORD (WEST), a parish in the hundred of CULLIFORD-TREE, Dorchester division of the county of DORSET, 2½ miles (S.E. by E.) from Dorchester, containing 184 inhabitants.

The living is a rectory, with that of Frome-Billet united, in the archdeaconry of Dorset, and diocese of Bristol, rated in the king's books at £10. 8. 1½. Mrs. Elizabeth Floyer was patroness in 1820. The church, by the date 1640 over the porch, seems to have been rebuilt in that year.

At Bingham Court are the remains of a free chapel, which has been long desecrated. Frome-Billet was formerly a parish, but the church having been destroyed, and the parish becoming almost depopulated, the living was united, about the middle of the fifteenth century, to that of West Stafford.

Volume 4, page 146