Bloxworth (St. Andrew)

St. Andrew's Church, Bloxworth

Sources:

• John Hutchins, The history and antiquities of the County of Dorset, 3rd ed., edited by William Shipp and J.W. Hodson, Westminster: J.B. Nichols, 1861-1873, Vol. 1, 1861, pp. 181-183.
• John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner, The buildings of England: Dorset. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972, p. 102.
• Arthur Mee, ed., Dorset: Thomas Hardy's country. The King's England. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1939, pp. 37-38.
• Arthur Wallace Pickard-Cambridge, Memoir of the Reverend Octavius Pickard-Cambridge, Oxford, privately printed, 1918. Extract available from: http://www.dorset-churches.org.uk/octavius_pickard_cambridge.html
• Octavius Pickard-Cambridge, "On an Ancient Hour Glass and Stand in Bloxworth Church, Dorset," Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, Vol. III, (1879), pp. 34-35. Transcript available from: http://www.dorset-churches.org.uk/papers/bloxworth_hourglass.html
• F.P. Pitfield, Dorset parish churches, A-D. Milborne Port: Dorset Publishing Company, 1981, pp. 79-83.
• Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of historical monuments in the County of Dorset, Vol. 2, Pt. 1, South-East Dorset. London: HMSO, 1970, pp. 25-27.

Current church guide (available 1998-99):

Bloxworth, St. Andrew's Church.
4 page folded leaflet containing a short history of the church.

Bells:

From Raven (1904, p. 100):

Two bells. Tenor - Diam., 32 in.; height, 24½ in.; weight, 6¼ in.

1. + MA + all'a + RI all'a + A all'a.
2. [star] [fleur-de-lys] [sideways N] David : Abbot [crown] Robert [three vertical dots] Alne [crown] C [crown] W [crown] anno domini [crown] 1737 [crown] [sideways M] [sideways N] [sideways A] [star] W [crown] K [crown] B [crown] F [crown]

Walters (1938, pp. 101-102) places the Bloxworth treble (inscribed "MARIA all'a") in a group of mediaeval bells "which bear evidence of having been actually cast in the county [of Dorset], although we know nothing of their founders." Walters groups the Bloxworth Treble with two bells at West Orchard and another at Lovington in Somerset. From this latter bell, he gives a provisional date of around 1460. The Tenor bell is by William Knight and is highly decorated with a variety of symbols and other letters. The number "3" in the date 1737 has been cast the wrong way around.

The church guide book reports that there were once three bells: "The story is that the [Tenor] bell became damaged and that the Squire and Churchwardens had it removed for repair. However in 1780 it was sold for 16/- (eighty pence) and is said to have been converted into a large brewing copper which was installed in Bloxworth House."

• Raven, J.J., The church bells of Dorset. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, Vol. 25, 1904, pp. 33-128.
• Walters, H.B., Dorset church bells. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, Vol. 60, 1938, pp. 97-120

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Maintained by Michael Day, Last updated: 10 August 2013.