Sherborne is a village and civil parish almost 3.5 miles (5.6 km) east of Northleach in Gloucestershire. Sherborne is a linear village, extending more than a mile along the valley of Sherborne Brook, a tributary of the River Windrush.

The place-name 'Sherborne' is first attested in the Domesday Book of 1086, where it is spelt 'Scireburne', and means 'bright stream'.^[3] This is a reference to Sherborne Brook.

Coenwulf of Mercia, who reigned from AD 796 to 821, is credited with giving the manor of Sherborne to Winchcombe Abbey.^[4] The Domesday Book records that the abbey held Sherborne in 1086.^[4] Edward I stayed in Sherborne in 1382.^[4] In 1539 the abbey was suppressed in the dissolution of the monasteries and the Crown took its lands.

Sherborne had a parish church by 1175, when it was listed amongst the property of Winchcombe Abbey.^[4] The original church building no longer exists, but a 19th-century cottage at the east end of the village incorporates two Norman doorways and other details^[5] said to have been recovered from an orchard at the same end of the village.^[4]

The present Church of England parish church of Saint Mary Magdalene is in the centre of the village. Its bell-tower and spire were built late in the 13th or early in the 14th century.^[6] The church is next to Sherborne House, which was built for Thomas Dutton after he bought the manor of Sherborne in 1551.^[7] Elizabeth I stayed at the house in 1592.^[4] John Dutton had the house re-faced in 1651–53,^[8] and James Dutton, 1st Baron Sherborne had alterations made to the church between 1743 and 1776, including the addition of a Doric portico.^[4] In 1850–59 John Baron Dutton, 2nd Baron Sherborne had the medieval nave and aisle of the church demolished to allow more light into Sherborne House, and had a new nave and sanctuary built further north.^[4][7] The church contains numerous ornate monuments to members of the Dutton family.^[4][7] The tower has a ring of six bells.^[9] The oldest is medieval; three more were cast in 1653 and the remaining two are 18th-century.^[4]

In 1624–40 John Dutton acquired land 2 miles (3.2 km) southwest of the village to create a deer park.^[4] He had The Lodge built as a viewing stand to watch deer being coursed by greyhounds.^[8] In 1898 it was extended for Susan, Lady Sherborne and converted into a house.^[10] The National Trust now owns the Lodge Park and Sherborne Estate.^[11] Sherborne House is converted into privately owned apartments and is not open to the public.

In 1086 the village had four watermills on Sherborne Brook.^[4] By the end of the 19th century only Duckleston Mill, at the west end of the village, remained, and it was disused.^[4] In 1961 it was still standing but had been converted into a farmhouse.^[4]

The Astronomer Royal James Bradley was born in Sherborne^[4] in 1693.

More than half of the parish was farmed under an open field system until 1777, when the common lands were enclosed.^[4]

The farmhouse at Stones Farm at the east end of Sherborne village was designed by Richard Pace and built in 1818.^[5]

The 2nd Baron Sherborne established two schools for boys in 1824. They were merged in 1862, and a schoolhouse was built for them in 1868.^[4] By 1906 it had been enlarged to take 165 pupils, but by 1938 attendance had fallen to 80.^[4] By 1961 it was a junior school.^[4] It is now a Church of England primary school.^[12]

Until the 1880s Sherborne was noted as a centre of Morris dancing.^[4]

Sherborne still has a village shop and tea room^[13] which incorporates an outreach Post Office.

• Elrington, C.R. (1964). Victoria County History: A History of the County of Gloucester, Volume 6. pp. 120–127.
• Verey, David (1970). The Buildings of England: Gloucestershire: The Cotswolds. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 385–386. ISBN 0-14-071040-X.