Wareham (Lady St. Mary)

Church of Lady St. Mary, Wareham, Dorset from the River Frome, 2014.

Lady St. Mary Church in Wareham can be found on the south side of the town near the River Frome and the causeway that leads to Stoborough and the Isle of Purbeck. The nave and aisles were rebuilt by Thomas Leverton Donaldson in the 1840s, unfortunately destroying a Saxon nave that had been assumed to be more recent attempt at Classical architecture.

Lady St. Mary was most likely the church near Wareham that William of Malmesbury claimed was founded by St Aldhelm (Bishop of Sherborne) in the 8th Century. In the later Saxon period, the church functioned as a minster. The church contains some Brittonic inscriptions, a Norman south chapel, and a 12th century lead font.

Sources:

• Davis, T., Wareham: gateway to Purbeck. Milborne Port: Dorset Publishing Company, 1984 (repr. 1997).
• Hope, M., Dorset. In: Humphrey, S.C., ed., Blue guide: churches and chapels of southern England. London: Black; New York: Norton, 1991, pp. 201-202.
• Hutchins, J. The history and antiquities of the County of Dorset, 3rd ed., edited by W. Shipp and J.W. Hodson, Westminster: J.B. Nichols, 1861-1873, Vol. 1, 1861, pp. 110-117.
• Mee, A., ed., Dorset: Thomas Hardy's country. The King's England. London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1939, pp. 272-276.
• Newman, J. and Pevsner, N., The buildings of England: Dorset. Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1972, pp. 435-437.
• Pitfield, F.P., Purbeck parish churches. Milborne Port: Dorset Publishing Company, 1985, pp. 78-90.
• 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, pp. 304-312.
• Sackett, T. and Sackett, E., Francis Frith's Dorset Churches. Salisbury: Frith Book Co., 2000, p. 82.
• Taylor, H.M. and Taylor, J., Anglo-Saxon architecture. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1956, Vol. II, pp. 634-637, plates 602-603.

Bells:

10, 15-2-14 in E.

Lead font, Lady St. Mary, Wareham.

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Maintained by Michael Day, Last updated: 3 December 2014.