St Aldhelm's Church is a

Grade II* listed 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 Irel ...

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church in the village of

Belchalwell Belchalwell is a small village in the civil parish of Okeford Fitzpaine in the Blackmore Vale, North Dorset, England. It lies south of Sturminster Newton and northwest of Blandford Forum. Belchalwell Street is sited on Upper Greensand, with ...

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 (unitary authority), Dors ...

. It is in the ecclesiastical parish of Belchalwell, which is part of the Benefice of Hazelbury Bryan and the Hillside Parishes. The church is situated on higher ground above Belchalwell village. The oldest parts of the church are of the 12th century; much of the building is of the 15th century.

Saint Aldhelm

There being no trace of the original dedication, after church records were lost in a fire in 1731, the church was dedicated in 1959 to

Saint 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 so ...

. Saint Aldhelm (c.639–709) was a notable scholar in Wessex in the time of

King Ine Ine, also rendered Ini or Ina, ( la, Inus; c. AD 670 – after 726) was King of Wessex from 689 to 726. At Ine's accession, his kingdom dominated much of southern England. However, he was unable to retain the territorial gains of his predecessor ...

; he was appointed the first

Abbot of Malmesbury Malmesbury Abbey, at Malmesbury in Wiltshire, England, is a religious house dedicated to Saint Peter and Saint Paul. It was one of the few English houses with a continuous history from the 7th century through to the dissolution of the monasteri ...

c.675, and became the first

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 o ...

in 705.St. Aldhelm (c.639–709)
Athelstan Museum, Malmesbury, accessed 29 October 2017.

History and description

upleft, The doorway in the south porch, showing the decorated Norman arch The

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-type ...

is the oldest surviving part of the church; the south wall dates from the late 12th century. There is no south aisle; the south doorway, which leads directly to the nave, is from this early period, having a well-preserved semi-circular

Norman arch The term Norman architecture is used to categorise styles of Romanesque architecture developed by the Normans in the various lands under their dominion or influence in the 11th and 12th centuries. In particular the term is traditionally used fo ...

decorated with

chevron Chevron (often relating to V-shaped patterns) may refer to: Science and technology * Chevron (aerospace), sawtooth patterns on some jet engines * Chevron (anatomy), a bone * ''Eulithis testata'', a moth * Chevron (geology), a fold in rock lay ...

patterns and terminating in head-stops.'Okeford Fitzpaine', An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Dorset, Volume 3: Central (1970), pp. 200–207
British History Online, accessed 29 October 2017. Most of the rest of the church is of the 15th century: the porch, the tower (built on the south of the church, adjoining the porch), the nave arcade, north aisle and the

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

. The tower has two stages and a parapet with

battlements A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

. It has

gargoyle In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from running down masonry walls ...

s at the corners of the parapet

string course A belt course, also called a string course or sill course, is a continuous row or layer of stones or brick set in a wall. Set in line with window sills, it helps to make the horizontal line of the sills visually more prominent. Set between the ...

, and a sundial (probably added later) on the south-west buttress of the tower. In the late 19th century the north aisle, the east wall of the chancel and the west wall of the nave were rebuilt.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Aldhelm's Church, Belchalwell Grade II* listed churches in Dorset Church of England church buildings in Dorset English churches with Norman architecture