Canford Magna - parish church - geograph

The Canford Magna Parish Church in

Canford Magna Canford Magna is a village in Dorset, England. The village is situated just south of the River Stour and lies between the towns of Wimborne Minster Wimborne Minster (often referred to as Wimborne, ) is a market town in Dorset in South Wes ...

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 , ...

, England – possibly dedicated to

St Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; la, Aurelius Augustinus Hipponensis; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430), also known as Saint Augustine, was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Afr ...

– is a mixture of Saxon,

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

and Mid Gothic architecture.

English Heritage English Heritage (officially the English Heritage Trust) is a charity that manages over 400 historic monuments, buildings and places. These include prehistoric sites, medieval castles, Roman forts and country houses. The charity states that i ...

have designated it 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 Irel ...

History

During late Saxon times, a small cruciform chapel was built, which is now 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. Ov ...

. Between the 12th century and the Dissolution of the monasteries, the church was under the control of the monks at

Bradenstoke Priory Bradenstoke Priory was a medieval priory of Augustinian canons regular in the village of Bradenstoke, Wiltshire, England. Its site, in the north of the county about west of Lyneham, is on a ridge above the south side of Dauntsey Vale. In th ...

. This ended with the dissolution of the priory in January 1539. During Norman times, the church was much expanded, and the north tower was added circa 1180 in a very unusual place – not far enough to the north to be considered a transept, as at Exeter Cathedral. The tower contains a ring of six bells, the back five of which are the last ring of bells out of the foundry of William Knight. The treble was added in 1897, to commemorate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The back five bells are listed. The tenor weighs and strikes the note F. In the 20th century, the church saw notable developments in British Evangelicalism. In 1971, John Collins, an evangelical minister took over leadership of the church. He was responsible for the creation of a new type of pastoral ministry in the church, reminiscent of the

Oxford Group The Oxford Group was a Christian organization (first known as ''First Century Christian Fellowship'') founded by the American Lutheran minister Frank Buchman in 1921. Buchman believed that fear and selfishness were the root of all problems. Fur ...

which established some 30 members as counsellors of the church.

Interments

The ashes of Sir Austen Henry Layard (died 1894), archeologist and politician are interred in the cemetery of the church.

Ivor Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne Ivor Bertie Guest, 1st Baron Wimborne, 2nd Baronet, DL (29 August 1835 – 22 February 1914) was a British industrialist and a member of the prominent Guest family. Early life Ivor Bertie Guest was born at Dowlais, near Merthyr Tydfil, the s ...

, was buried in the churchyard in 1914. Sir Walter Shaw, judge, chairman of the

Shaw Commission The Shaw Report, officially the Report of the Commission on the Palestine Disturbances of August 1929, commonly known as the Shaw Commission, was the result of a British commission of inquiry, led by Sir Walter Shaw, established to investigate ...

, was buried here on 27 April 1937. The churchyard also contains the grave of Ellis Gawler, a

Royal Air Force Reserve The Regular Reserve is the component of the military reserve of the British Armed Forces whose members have formerly served in the " Regular" (full-time professional) forces. (Other components of the Reserve are the Volunteer Reserves and the Sp ...

serviceman killed in the

Second World War World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposi ...

References

{{coord, 50.7889, -1.9561, type:landmark_region:GB, display=title Church of England church buildings in Dorset Grade I listed churches in Dorset