ur churches are amazing buildings, the centres of communities for hundreds of years
as well as repositories of the sort of antiquities, monuments and art that you expect
to find behind glass in a museum. All along the coast, churches stand on leafy village
greens, hide far from roads or perch improbably on cliff edges.
This is the spot where Lawrence of Arabia is buried; it also has a fine garden and
an award-winning tearoom. The church is unique in that its stained glass windows,
after being destroyed by a bomb in World War Two, were replaced with clear engraved
glass that gives the church an unusually light and airy feel. The engraving was done,
over a period of thirty years, by Sir Laurence Whistler, brother of the painter Rex
Whistler. Sir Laurence was a poet but gradually turned to glass engraving; he produced
fine work for Salisbury Cathedral and for Oxford colleges.
This chapel has recently been the subject of a sensitive restoration. It stands hidden
at the end of a farm track waiting to be discovered by those who know the location.
Dating from the 13th century it was connected to the monastery of Milton Abbas before
being converted into a bake house after the dissolution of the monasteries. Until
recently it lay abandoned and left to crumble. It is a moving place to stand in as
it was in 2007 Mass was celebrated in it for the first time in 500 years.
This church is associated with Thomas Hardy, Puddletown being the Wetherbury o
f Hardy's
novels. It was here that many of his relations worshipped and left their mark as
graffiti in the church. It dates from the late Middle Ages. Its atmospheric interior
houses a set of box pews complete with hooks for top hats, wall paintings which were
whitewashed by the Puritans, and a wonderful group of marble tombs belonging to the
the Martyns of
Athelhampton and dating from the 14th century. Their decayed state
makes them all the more evocative. The church door was obviously the subject of potshots
in the Civil war: lead pellets were dug out of it during conservation and are on
display. And hanging inconspicuously in the gloom are two objects which demonstrate
the pleasing eccentricity of church contents: canvas fire buckets dating from 1805
and printed boldly with the name of their provider: Sun Insurance.
