Description

SY 49 NE NETHERBURY MELPLASH

7/138 Melplash Church
(Christ Church)

GV II*

Church in neo-Romanesque style. 1845-6 by Benjamin Ferrey for
James Bandinel, in memory of his father Dr. Bandinel, vicar of
Netherbury and Beaminster. Cruciform with apsidal Chancel, North
vestry, Central Tower, North and South Transepts, Nave and South
Porch. Local rubble walls, with Ham Hall stone dressings. Slate
and lead roofs. All the openings have moulded round heads and
most of the jambs have attached shafts with scalloped capitals
and moulded bases. Chancel : 2 pilaster buttresses to full height
of apse and a stepped corbel table under the eaves. Apse has five
small single-light windows. Vestry: apsidal east end and a billet-
moulded eaves cornice. The east window and north door with nail-
head enrichment. North door, plank with a round head. Central
tower, one stage above the crossing. Each face with a main arch
enclosing two tall windows and flanked by recesses. Round sinkings
above. Square tower stair projects in the angle between the south
transept and nave. Transepts, north and south walls of 3 stages.
South transept has a doorway of 2 enriched orders, with shafted jambs
and roll-mould heads. Nave: of 4 bays, windows with heads shaped
to a broad trefoil. Pilaster buttresses with inverted, scalloped
ogee capitals. West wall is in three stages. South Porch: moulded
parapet and small engaged shafts at the angles. Entrance arch is of
3 plain orders with shafted jambs and 2 rolls. Interior: chancel-
roof, arch-bracing to a transverse collar on the chord of the apse.
Nave roof: high arch-braced collar, springing from short hammer-
posts, ashlaring at wall-plate. (Now used as Hall and Badminton
Court and screened off.) Crossing with coupled shafts and scallop
capitals, in each direction, with spur bases. Fittings: Brasses
on the south wall of the south transept 1) date of building and
directing that all seats to be free. 2) Containing quotations from
Chronicles, ch. 29, vv. lO, 14, 18. Font: Cl9, stone, similar to
the Cl2 font at Whitchurch Canonicorum.
Source: R.C.H.M. Dorset I, p 172 (2). Dorset County Chronicle,
22nd May, 1845.

Listing NGR: SY4844597552

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Christ Church, Melplash at Wikipedia
• Christ Church, Melplash at Wikipedia
• Wikidata IDs Q17543488 Q65072109

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  A Buying and Owning a Listed Building: A Brief Guide
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy
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  Oxfordshire: North and West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Cumbria: Cumberland, Westmorland and Furness (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990
• 
  Historic Environment Law: Planning, Listed Buildings, Monuments, Conservation Areas and Objects by Harwood, Richard (2012) Paperback