Listed Building record MDO14165 - Parish church of St Mary, Chickerell

Parish church. The chancel and nave were built in the late 13th century, and in the 14th century the buttress and bellcote were added to the west end of the nave. In 1834 the north aisle was added. The south porch was rebuilt in 1722, and the north vestry is modern. Chancel restored 1865.

Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society, 1985, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1984, 125 (Serial). SDO84.

Le Pard, Gordon, 1998, Medieval sundials in Dorset. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 119, 74 (Article in serial). SDO21411.

<1> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 38-93 (Monograph). SDO148.

'(1) THE PARISH CHURCH OF ST.MARY stands to the N.W. of Chickerell village. The walls are of local stone rubble with dressings of the same material and the roofs are covered with blue slates. The Chancel and Nave were built in the late 13th century, and in the 14th century the buttress and bell-cote were added on the W. end of the nave. In 1834 the North Aisle was added. The South Porch was rebuilt in 1722, and the North Vestry is modern. The chancel was restored in 1865, and there were further restorations in 1875 and 1896. A drawing of the church in 1804 by the Rev. John Skinner in the British Museum (Add. MS. 33642, f. 54) shows the eaves of the chancel at about the level of the present eaves of the nave.
Among the fittings the font, the incised slab and the pulpit are of interest.

Architectural Description—The Chancel (18¼ ft. by 13 ft.), which has had the N. and S. walls lowered since 1804, has a late 13th-century E. window and a modern doorway in the N. wall to the vestry. In the S. wall are two 19th-century windows and, between them, a blocked 13th-century doorway with continuous chamfered jambs and two-centred head. The late 13th-century chancel arch has been rebuilt and widened; it is two-centred and of two orders, the inner hollow-chamfered and the outer chamfered, with roll-moulded stops; the stop on the S. has been cut away to a splay.
The Nave (31¼ ft. by 15½ ft.) has had the N. wall removed entirely and replaced by three 19th-century cast-iron columns. The S. wall has a chamfered plinth and a moulded string close under the eaves. High up at the E. end is a small single-light window probably of the 14th century with an ogee opening and pierced spandrels in a square head with a flat chamfered rear arch; it is over the E. haunch of a large 15th-century window of three cinque-foiled lights with vertical tracery in a distorted two-centred head with a label with coarsely-cut head-stops of a man and a woman. The S. doorway has a two-centred head and may be of the 13th century; it has been plastered and heavily coated with paint. The much altered and partly reset 14th-century window further W. is of two trefoiled lights with a quatrefoil in a two-centred head; it was perhaps transomed; the reveals are chamfered externally and, internally, they and the mullion are rebated for shutters; the lights have been extended downward some 3 ft., a transom being reused as the sill. The gabled W. wall has a central buttress in three stages and at the gable apex is an ashlar bell-cote with two round-headed openings under a gablet with trefoiled capstone.
The North Aisle (14½ ft. wide) is gabled to the E. and W. and each end wall contains a two-light window; these and the three-light window in the N. wall have simple intersecting tracery in two-centred heads. The W. doorway has chamfered jambs, a two-centred chamfered head and a stone tablet above inscribed: 'This aisle built 1834 by subscription', and with the names of the churchwardens.
The South Porch (8½ ft. by 6½ ft.) is gabled to the S., the parapet having a flat stone coping and a trefoiled apex-stone. The entrance has a chamfered segmental head and chamfered jambs; above it is a small stone tablet with the initials and date IH 1722.
The Roofs are of the 19th century.
Fittings—Bells: two, inaccessible, said to be uninscribed, one recast c. 1900. Door: In entrance to S. porch, nail-studded plank door with strap hinges, 18th-century. Font: circular tub-shaped bowl with nearly straight sides, shallow band of fluted label-ornament under rim, bands of bead and interlace ornament round the lower part and three incised lines between, 12th-century, on modern cylindrical stem and step. Gallery: continuous across full width of W. end of church, with plain panelled front, 1834.
Monuments and Floor-slab. Monuments: In chancel—on S. wall, (1) to Rev. William Gorton, 1830, black and white marble tablet; (2) to Rev. John Mills Arnold, 1850, white and black marble wall-tablet with fluted side brackets, pediment and antefixae, by Raggett, Weymouth. In N. aisle—on N. wall, (3) to Philippus Keay, 1796, oval white marble wall-tablet; (4) to Charles Bowles, 1822, black and white marble tablet; (5) Purbeck marble slab with incised figure of priest in academical dress, crudely drawn, 15th-century, cut down and reset, on modern corbels. In churchyard—S. of chancel, (6) to Prudence, wife of William Davis, 1654/5, table-tomb with arched panel on side and moulded top. Floor-slab: At entrance to S. porch, rectangular, with traces of black-letter inscription in one corner.
Paintings: In nave, two framed oil paintings on canvas: 'Noli me tangere', after Raphael, late 18th-century; the Visitation (?), late 18th-century. Pulpit (Plate 28): six-sided, of oak with fluted and reeded styles, sides divided into three tiers of panels by enriched rails, the lower two tiers with round-headed panels cut out of the solid and containing arabesques of stylised trees, the uppermost with guilloche patterns, excepting one panel carved with the date and initials '1630 RW.IM.', with modern cornice, two plain modern sides and some modern repairs, on modern pine base. Stoup: E. of S. doorway, recess with roughly cut dishing in projecting sill with chamfered under edge, mediaeval. Tablets: In nave, high on W. wall, Creed and Lord's Prayer painted on cinquefoil-headed boards, 19th-century. Miscellaneous: In nave, in S. wall, grotesque head-stop, mediaeval. '

<2> Trevarthen, M, 2018, St Mary's Church, Chickerell. Archaeological Observations and Recording during Excavation of Structural Engineer's Test Pits (Unpublished document). SDO16225.

<3> National Record of the Historic Environment, 1431265 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

May 1 2025 12:51PM