The parish church of Lady St. Mary, Wareham is a church of
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons were a cultural group who inhabited England in the Early Middle Ages. They traced their origins to settlers who came to Britain from mainland Europe in the 5th century. However, the ethnogenesis of the Anglo-Saxons happened wit ...
origin in the town of
Wareham,
Dorset
Dorset ( ; archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The ceremonial county comprises the unitary authority areas of Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole and Dorset. Covering an area of , ...
, in England. The church is notable as the possible burial place of King
Beorhtric,
and for the discovery of five stones with
Brittonic
Brittonic or Brythonic may refer to:
*Common Brittonic, or Brythonic, the Celtic language anciently spoken in Great Britain
*Brittonic languages, a branch of the Celtic languages descended from Common Brittonic
*Britons (Celtic people)
The Br ...
inscriptions dating to the 7th to 9th centuries.
A notable feature is the unique hexagonal lead
font
In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a " sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design.
In mo ...
dating to around 1200. The Anglo-Saxon
nave
The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-typ ...
was demolished in 1842.
History
St Aldhelm
Aldhelm ( ang, Ealdhelm, la, Aldhelmus Malmesberiensis) (c. 63925 May 709), Abbot of Malmesbury Abbey, Bishop of Sherborne, and a writer and scholar of Latin poetry, was born before the middle of the 7th century. He is said to have been the s ...
, who was
Bishop of Sherborne
The Bishop of Sherborne is an episcopal title which takes its name from the market town of Sherborne in Dorset, England. The see of Sherborne was established in around 705 by St Aldhelm, the Abbot of Malmesbury. This see was the mother diocese of ...
around 705, founded a church at Wareham which is probably the church of Lady St. Mary. A nunnery may have been associated with it, but this was destroyed by a Danish raid in 876, before being rebuilt by the daughter of
Alfred the Great
Alfred the Great (alt. Ælfred 848/849 – 26 October 899) was King of the West Saxons from 871 to 886, and King of the Anglo-Saxons from 886 until his death in 899. He was the youngest son of King Æthelwulf and his first wife Osburh, who bo ...
around 900. The church may also be where
Beorhtric, King of Wessex, was buried in 802, and where the body of
King Edward the Martyr was brought after he had been murdered at
Corfe Castle
Corfe Castle is a fortification standing above the village of the same name on the Isle of Purbeck peninsula in the English county of Dorset. Built by William the Conqueror, the castle dates to the 11th century and commands a gap in the P ...
in 978.
The church
On 7 May 1952 the church was officially designated as a Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern I ...
.
The church is built of
Purbeck limestone
Purbeck Marble is a fossiliferous limestone found in the Isle of Purbeck, a peninsula in south-east Dorset, England. It is a variety of Purbeck stone that has been quarried since at least Roman times as a decorative building stone.
Geology ...
and has slate and tile roofs. It has a long chancel and a four-bay nave with two aisles. The south chapel is at a lower level than the rest of the building and at one time had a treasury above. The robust tower is at the west end of the church and is built in four stages, with diagonal buttressing to the lower three. There is a large transomed window at the west end and another at the east end that was installed by Clayton & Bell between 1886 and 1890. The church was founded in the 8th century, with the south chapel dating to the 12th century. Other parts of the building date to the 14th century and the tower probably to the early 16th century.
Rectors
The first recorded rector of the church was Peter de Deserto (1302–08) who followed Prior Nicholas Bynet (c. 1296). In 1678 the rectory was annexed to that of Holy Trinity, Wareham, and the first rector of both parishes was John Jones.
References
External links
{{Commons category, Lady St Mary Church, Wareham
Wareham Churches*'Wareham Lady St. Mary', i
''An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 2, South east'' (London, 1970), pp. 303-326 This includes an analysis of the Brittonic inscriptions.
Churches with elements of Anglo-Saxon work
Church of England church buildings in Dorset
Grade I listed churches in Dorset
Wareham, Dorset