SEMLEY, a parish, with a village, in Tisbury district, Wilts; on the Salisbury and Yeovil railway, 3 miles N E of Shaftesbury. It has a station on the railway, and a post-office under Salisbury. Acres, 2, 945. Rated property, £3, 812. Pop., 699. The manor belongs to Lord Arundel. Building-stone is quarried. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury. Value, £600.* Patron, Christchurch, Oxford. The church was all early English; but the chancel was rebuilt, in the decoratedstyle, in 1866. There are a Baptist chapel, a national school, and charities £4.

(John Marius Wilson, Imperial Gazetteer of England and Wales (1870-72))