Listed Building record MDO17629 - Parish Church of St Lawrence, Affpuddle

Parish Church of St. Lawrence, Affpuddle with walls of rubble and squared stone, in places alternating with flint and carstone bands and limestone ashlar and flint in chequer-pattern. The nave and probably the chancel were built about 1200, and the south porch was added in the mid 14th century. About 1400 the chancel was rebuilt, the chancel arch being enlarged and the walls of the nave heightened. At the same period the south wall of the nave was patched and partly rebuilt with the insertion of two large
south windows. Late in the 15th century the west tower, north arcade of the nave and the north aisle were built. The east and south walls of the chancel were taken down and rebuilt in 1840,
with restoration of the whole church in 1875-8. The east end of the north aisle has recently been fitted with a chapel. <1>

St Lawrence's Church. Two late C12th fonts are located in the North aisle, one brought from the church at Tunner's Puddle. <3>

Dorset Natural History and Antiquarian Field Club, 1912, Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society for 1911, lvii-lviii (Serial). SDO20304.

The VICAR (the Rev. H. M. Brown) welcomed the Club.
The Church is entered under a trefoil-headed arch of the 13th Century, but the church as a whole may be described as of the "Decorated " period. There is a finely-moulded arcade to the aisle on the north side of the nave. The tower is Perpendicular, of the familiar 15th Century type, with recumbent lions on the buttresses. There is also a finely carved pulpit of the 16th Century, and some good bench-ends on one of which is a dated inscription, of which an illustration is here given. The church also possesses an Early English Font.

Le Pard, Gordon, 1998, Medieval sundials in Dorset. Proceedings of the Dorset Natural History and Archaeological Society 119, 69-70, 73 (Article in serial). SDO21411.

<1> Ordnance Survey, Ordnance Survey Map 6in, 1962 (Map). SWX1540.

(SY 80539371) St. Lawrence's Church (NAT)

<2> Royal Commission on Historical Monuments (England), 1970, An Inventory of Historical Monuments in the County of Dorset, Volume II (South East) Part 1, 2 (Monograph). SDO148.

<3> Newman, J, and Pevsner, N, 1972, The Buildings of England: Dorset, 73-4 (Monograph). SWX1290.

<4> Ordnance Survey, 1:2500 scale, 1985 (Map). SWX1197.

(SY80539371) St Lawrence's Church [NAT]

<5> 1965, Affpuddle Church (Monograph). SDO18220.

<6> National Record of the Historic Environment, 456331 (Digital archive). SDO14739.

Record last edited

Jul 28 2025 10:43AM