Fleet (Holy Trinity)

Holy Trinity Church, Fleet, Dorset

Fleet has two churches. The old church can be found at the end of Butter Street and overlooks Chesil Beach and the Fleet. Only the chancel now remains; the building having been severely damaged in a storm in November 1824. It contains some seventeenth century monuments to the Mohun family. Following the storm, the Rector, the Rev. George Gould, built a new church on a new site around a quarter-mile to the north. This was designed in Commissioners' Gothic style by Strickland, 1827-29.

Sources:

• John Betjeman, Sir John Betjeman's guide to English parish churches, revised and updated by Nigel Kerr. London: HarperCollins, 1993, p. 182.
• Dorset Historic Churches Trust, Dorset Churches. [Dorchester]: DHCT, 1988, p. 25.
• John Hutchins, The history and antiquities of the County of Dorset, 3rd ed., edited by W. Shipp and J.W. Hodson, Westminster: J.B. Nichols and Sons, 1861-1873.
• Arthur Mee, ed., Dorset: Thomas Hardy's country. The King's England. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1939, pp. 103-104.
• John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner, The buildings of England: Dorset. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972, p. 205-206.
• Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An inventory of historical monuments in the County of Dorset, Vol. 1, West Dorset. London: HMSO, 1952, pp. 109-110: https://www.british-history.ac.uk/rchme/dorset/vol1/pp109-110 (accessed, 16 July 2019).

Web pages:

• DHCT page: https://www.dorsethistoricchurchestrust.co.uk/index.php/28-weymouth-deanery/286-fleet-new-church (accessed, 16 July 2019).

Old Church, Fleet, Dorset

Church guides (as of 2013):

• Holy Trinity, Fleet, Dorset / compiled by the Rev. O. J. Newnham and Mrs Edwards-Stuart (1986/1993); revised and updated by Saira Sawtell (Holy Trinity Fleet PCC, 1999).
• The story of Fleet and its old church / compiled by the Rev. O. J. Newnham and Mrs Edwards-Stuart (1986) (Fleet PCC, 1993)
• Discovering Moonfleet. [A leaflet providing information on local locations used in J. Meade Faulkner's smuggling novel Moonfleet].

US Flag in Holy Trinity Church, Fleet, Dorset

The 383rd Engineer Battalion (Separate), US Army:

Holy Trinity is the Memorial Church for the 383rd Engineer Battalion (Separate) of the US Army, which later become the 1349th Engineer General Service Regiment. The unit was stationed in Fleet from 1943 until 1944 preparing engineering works for D-Day, before taking part in the North-West Europe Campaign.

David and Cary Bickford have very kindly shared this introduction to copies of battalion records available in the Church: http://dorset-churches.org.uk/documents/Holy_Trinity_Fleet_383rd_Engineer_Battalion_(Separate).pdf

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Maintained by Michael Day, Last updated: 16 July 2019.