Shapwick (St. Bartholomew)

St. Bartholomew's Church, Shapwick, Dorset

St Bartholomew's Church can be found in a beautiful setting right next to the River Stour, close to where the Roman road from Badbury Rings to Dorchester would have forded the river. Building stones include heathstone, greensand, chalk and flint - which are banded together attractively in the tower. The church is old; some parts date from Norman times and the tower is fourteenth century. William Wake, later Archbishop of Canterbury, was born in this parish in 1657.

Sources:

• John Hutchins, The history and antiquities of the County of Dorset, 3rd ed., edited by William Shipp and James Whitworth 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. 210-212.
• John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner, The buildings of England: Dorset. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972, pp. 367.
• Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An inventory of historical monuments in the County of Dorset, Vol. 5, East Dorset. London: HMSO, 1975, pp. 57-59.
• Norman Sykes, William Wake, Archbishop of Canterbury, 1657-1737, 2 vols., Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1957.

Bells:

5, 7½cwt in A; augmented and overhauled in 2009.

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Maintained by Michael Day, Last updated: 11 March 2016.