The parish church of Lady St. Mary, Wareham is a church of
Anglo-Saxon
The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...
origin in the town of
Wareham,
Dorset
Dorset ( ; Archaism, archaically: Dorsetshire , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by Somerset to the north-west, Wiltshire to the north and the north-east, Hampshire to the east, t ...
, in England. The church is notable as the possible burial place of King
Beorhtric,
and for the discovery of five stones with
Brittonic 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'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design.
For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...
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-type ...
was demolished in 1842.
History
St Aldhelm, who was
Bishop of Sherborne 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 ( ; – 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 both died when Alfr ...
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 Corfe Castle (village), 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 ...
in 978.
In April 2023, a criminal gang use explosives to steal a 450-year-old Elizabethan chalice worth £30,000 from a locked safe in the vestry of Lady St Mary Church.
The church
On 7 May 1952 the church was officially designated as a Grade I
listed building
In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Hi ...
.
The church is built of
Purbeck limestone 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