Stinsford is a village and civil parish in southwest Dorset, England, about 1 mile (1.6 km) east of Dorchester.

[3] There has been worship at the site since at least Norman times, but the only remaining parts of the earliest structure are the sculpture of St Michael, inside the west wall of the south aisle, and the restored Purbeck Marble font.

[4] St Michael's was the local church of novelist and poet Thomas Hardy and he was baptised here.

The churchyard also contains the grave of Poet Laureate Cecil Day-Lewis, who died in 1972 and had arranged for his burial to be close to Hardy whom he admired.

[5][6] Also here are the remains of the actor and dramatist William O'Brien (died 1815) and his wife Lady Susan Fox-Strangways.