MELBURY-SAMPFORD, a parish in Beaminster district, Dorset; 1¾ mile NW of Evershot r. station, and 7¾ SW of Sherborne. Post town, Melbury-Osmond, under Dorchester. Acres, 1,024. Real property, £3,208. Pop., 60. Houses, 10. The property belongs to the Earl of Ilchester. Melbury Hall is the Earl's seat; stands on high ground, commanding a fine prospect to the Mendip and the Quantock hills; is an ancient edifice, mainly rebuilt about the beginning of last century; and has an E front of weather-beaten stone, ornamented with Corinthian pillars. The living is a rectory, annexed to the rectory of Melbury-Osmond, in the diocese of Salisbury. The church is ancient, has a pinnacled tower, and contains monuments of the Brownings and the Strangeways.

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