East Holme is a small village

Village

A village is a clustered human settlement or community, larger than a hamlet with the population ranging from a few hundred to a few thousand , Though often located in rural areas, the term urban village is also applied to certain urban neighbourhoods, such as the West Village in Manhattan, New...

 which is situated about half way between Wool

Wool, Dorset

Wool is a village in the Purbeck district of Dorset, England. The village has a population of 4,118 , though the population has fluctuated over the past 15 years, due to the proximity of military institutions, reaching a high of 4,300 in 1992. The village lies at a historic bridging point on the...

 and Wareham

Wareham, Dorset

Wareham is an historic market town and, under the name Wareham Town, a civil parish, in the English county of Dorset. The town is situated on the River Frome eight miles southwest of Poole.-Situation and geography:...

 in Dorset

Dorset

Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

. The village is sprawled around a large house called Holme Priory.

The South West Main Line from London Waterloo to Weymouth runs through the village and, although the train does not stop, the village contains one of only a few of the remaining manned gate crossings. These have become particularly rare in the area.

The church at East Holme

East Holme is also fortunate to contain the church of St, John the Evangelist standing rather apart from the rest of the village. The footpath across the park to the church is signposted and crosses in front of the priory, a fine late 18th century house, built on the site of a former, small Cluniac priory.

Following the dissolution the Priory church survived as the parish church until 1715. A new parish church was built in 1865 to the designs of John Hicks, and is one of his more elaborate churches. Now it has a faintly seedy air, which somehow suits this fine example of high Victorian taste. Built from local materials - dark brown heathstone quarried close by, With a Purbeck limestone roof, and Purbeck Marble shafts inside,

The painted decoration inside the church is by Miss Selina Bond.