Tyneham (St. Mary)

St. Mary's Church, Tyneham from the west (2015).

St. Mary's Church, Tyneham is a small cruciform-plan building with walls of limestone rubble. The North Transept and parts of the Nave are medieval, dating from the 13th century, while the South Transept was rebuilt in the mid-19th century by the Rev. William Bond and contains several monuments to the Bond family.

Tyneham, however is no ordinary village. It was evacuated in 1943 to make room for the expansion of the gunnery ranges attached to the Royal Armoured Corps Gunnery School based at Lulworth Camp. The village is still uninhabited - although regularly open to the public - and for some people has become a potent symbol of a vanished rural England , as described in Patrick Wright's recent book The village that died for England [1].

After the military take-over in 1943, the church building initially suffered from neglect (or worse) and some fittings were removed for safe-keeping elsewhere. The organ and bells were moved to Steeple church and the Jacobean pulpit to Lulworth Camp. The church is now maintained by the military authorities and has become the site of a permanent exhibition giving information on the history of the Tyneham valley and local geology and wildlife habitats. The church and exhibition is usually open from 10.00 AM to 4.00 PM on range walk open days.

Sources:

• John Hutchins, The History and antiquities of the County of Dorset, 3rd ed., edited by William Shipp and James Whitworth Hodson. Westminster: John Bowyer Nichols and Sons, 1861-1873, Vol. 1, 1861, pp. 624-625.
• Arthur Mee, ed., Dorset: Thomas Hardy's country. The King's England. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1939, p. 269.
• John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner, The buildings of England: Dorset. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972, p. 431.
• Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), An Inventory of historical monuments in the County of Dorset, Vol. 2, South-East Dorset. London: HMSO, 1970, pt. 2, p. 300.
• Pitfield, F.P., Purbeck parish churches. Milborne Port: Dorset Publishing Company, 1985, pp. 67-70.
• Rodney Legg, Tyneham: ghost village. Wincanton: Dorset Publishing Company, 1998, pp. 39-45.
• Rodney Legg, Lulworth encyclopaedia. Wincanton: Dorset Publishing Company, 1998, pp. 109-111.

Current church guide:

There is no specific church guidebook currently available. Instead, there are a number of Tyneham valley-based postcards and other publications available:

• Brian Leighton, A short history of Tyneham. Bovington: RAC Centre, Media Support Wing (no date).
  A 15 page pamphlet giving a short history of Tyneham including chapters on the church, school and manor house (cost: £1.00 in July 1999).
• Julie Astin and Hugh Waller, Tyneham trail (1988).
  An illustrated leaflet designed as a walk-around guide to the deserted village with details of the former inhabitants of houses and extracts from the school log-book (cost: 50p in July 1999).
• Lulworth range walks. Ministry of Defence (1994).
  An illustrated leaflet giving information on the Lulworth range walks including a detailed map and information on natural history, prehistoric remains and range safety (cost: 20p in July 1999).

Bells:

There were two bells that hung in a bellcote. The bellcote survives, but the bells are now elsewhere.

For a short history of Tyneham and the tank gunnery ranges since 1943, see: http://www.dorset-churches.org.uk/tyneham/

Other websites:

There are some more Tyneham illustrations (and a map) on the following page:
http://www.dorsetshire.com/old/tyneham1.html.

To Dorset Churches Index Page

Maintained by Michael Day, Last updated: 7 September 2015.