HOLWELL, a parish in the hundred of HORETHORNE, county of SOMERSET, though locally in the hundred of Sherborne, county of Dorset, 5 miles (S.E. by E.). from Sherborne, containing, with the hamlet of Backshaw, 342 inhabitants. The living is a rectory, in the archdeaconry of Dorset, and diocese of Bristol, rated in the king's books at £14. 13. 9., and in the patronage of the Provost and Fellows of Queen's College, Oxford. The church is dedicated to St. Lawrence. Here stood the principal lodge of the ancient Forest of Blackmore, which William de Bret and his successors held by service as the King's Forester in Blackmore; the office became extinct when the district was disafforested.