St Mary's Church is a

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

parish church in Bradford Peverell,

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 ...

, England. It was designed by

Decimus Burton Decimus Burton (30 September 1800 – 14 December 1881) was one of the foremost English architects and landscapers of the 19th century. He was the foremost Victorian architect in the Roman revival, Greek revival, Georgian neoclassical and Reg ...

and built in 1849–50. The church is a

Grade II* 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 ...

. In the churchyard is Bradford Peverell's war memorial which contains the names of those who fell in both World Wars. It was completed and erected in January 1921 and is made of Dartmoor granite. It became a Grade II listed monument in 2015.

History

St Mary's was built to replace an earlier church which had fallen into a dilapidated condition. The original church was small and ancient, made up of a

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 ...

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

, south aisle and porch, with a wooden turret containing three bells. The decision to rebuild the church had been made by 1847, when early drawings for a new church were made by

and an estimate of the construction costs made by the local builder John Wellspring of Dorchester. Burton finalised his plans in 1848 and a faculty was granted in 1849 for the old church to be demolished and the new one to be built on the same site. The majority of the cost of the new church was paid for by the Lord of the Manor, Hastings Nathaniel Middleton of Wollaston House. Construction was carried out by John Wellspring and St Mary's was consecrated by the

Bishop of Salisbury The Bishop of Salisbury is the Ordinary (officer), ordinary of the Church of England's Diocese of Salisbury in the Province of Canterbury. The diocese covers much of the counties of Wiltshire and Dorset. The Episcopal see, see is in the Salisbur ...

, the Right Rev. Edward Denison, on 28 October 1850. The church's organ was installed in 1888. It was built by Bishop and Son of

London London is the Capital city, capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of both England and the United Kingdom, with a population of in . London metropolitan area, Its wider metropolitan area is the largest in Wester ...

. The churchyard was extended around 1888 and again around 1955.

Architecture

St Mary's is built of coarse ashlar with ashlar dressings and clay tiled roofs. It is made up of a five-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a ''gulf'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...

nave, a two-bay chancel, a three-stage west tower (with an octagonal broach spire of

Portland stone Portland stone is a limestone geological formation (formally named the Portland Stone Formation) dating to the Tithonian age of the Late Jurassic that is quarried on the Isle of Portland in Dorset, England. The quarries are cut in beds of whi ...

), a north

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government of a parish in England, Wales and some English colony, English colonies. At their height, the vestries were the only form of local government in many places and spen ...

and south porch. The pulpit and font are of 19th-century date. The tower has five bells, one of which was cast by Thomas Purdue in 1674, and two which were added in 1897. Some of the old church's fittings and memorials were transferred to the new church. The west tower has a marble tablet made by Lester of Dorchester in memory of the rector Rev. Middleton Onslow, dated 1837. Floor slabs in the nave include those to John Jobbins, dated 1696, Thomas Meggs, dated 1696, another Thomas Meggs, dated c. 1698, Harry Meggs, dated 1702 and another Harry Meggs, dated 1782. The Royal coat of arms of Queen Victoria is placed over the tower arch and inside the tower are two stools and a table, all dating to the 17th century. The chancel's east window was created using fragments of 13th and 14th-century glass received from the chapel at

New College, Oxford New College is a constituent college of the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Founded in 1379 by Bishop William of Wykeham in conjunction with Winchester College as New College's feeder school, New College was one of the first col ...

. When the glass was removed from the New College chapel, it was stored in a box. On 25 May 1850, Hastings Nathaniel Middleton visited Oxford to inspect the glass, which had been offered to him by the warden of the college for use in the new church at Bradford Peverell. The north window uses fragments sourced from the old church and containing the coat of arms and motto of Bishop William of Wykeham. In the chancel is a marble tablet to the rector Rev. H. Blackstone Williams, dated 1879. In the nave are brass tablets in memory of Frank Middleton, a captain in the Dorset Regiment, dated 1915, Ernest Middleton, Second Lieutenant,

Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry The Queen's Own Dorset Yeomanry was a yeomanry regiment of the British Army founded in 1794 as the Dorsetshire Regiment of Volunteer Yeomanry Cavalry in response to the growing threat of invasion during the Napoleonic wars. It gained its first ro ...

, dated 1917, Captain Thomas Winwood, M.C, Royal Field Artillery, dated 1919, and Walter Middleton, dated 1931. There are also memorial windows to members of the Middleton family, one to Lieutenant Edward Williams, who fell in the

Sudan campaign The Mahdist War (; 1881–1899) was fought between the Mahdist Sudanese, led by Muhammad Ahmad bin Abdullah, who had proclaimed himself the "Mahdi" of Islam (the "Guided One"), and the forces of the Khedivate of Egypt, initially, and later th ...

, and one to Vice-Admiral Sir Robert O'Brien FitzRoy. In the churchyard are four table tombs which became Grade II listed in 1985. Three belong to the Dearing family, all dating to the second half of the 17th-century, including one to Luke Dearing the Elder, dated 1666. The other belongs to Hastings Nathaniel Middleton, who died in 1821.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bradford Peverell, St Mary's Church Church of England church buildings in Dorset 1850 establishments in England Grade II* listed churches in Dorset