Opening
The church is open every day from 9.00 hours to 18.00 hours.Getting here
Our small village church is on the site that has had a Christian place of worship since the days of the Anglo-Saxons.
The shape and dimensions of our church changed in the 13C and 14C with the addition of the aisles. As a pre-reformation church a rood screen once stood in front of the fine chancel arch, and a still-extant hagioscope on its south side housed a circular staircase which led to the rood loft.
The chancel roof is a good specimen of 16th century oak roofing, though the wagon roof in the nave did not survive the church's extensive 19th century restorations. In 1843 the major part of the west gallery was removed but following a public appeal in 1984 to restore the gallery, and an endowment in 1990 by the American scholar Richard Little Purdy in memory of the life and work of Florence Emily Hardy a new West Gallery was built. A new 'Chair Organ' was built and placed in the gallery in 1996. This now sings out to remind us the the former musicians "quire".
Thomas Hardy's heart is buried here, and his tombstone also contains the mortal remains of his two wives, together with other family tombstones are on the left of the path leading to the Church. The Church is the 'Mellstock Church' so lovingly described in 'Under the Greenwood Tree'. The tombstone of the former Poet Laureate, Cecil Day Lewis stands in the same line. The Stone that covered his ashes in Poets' Corner was replaced by the authorities of Westminster Abbey and thus the original is now placed below his memorial window in the south aisle.
The Rev'd Leila Mathers was licensed, with effect from 23rd September 2023, as the vicar of the benefice of Charminster and Stinsford and Priest in Charge of the Chalk Stream Benefice which includes Bradford Peverell, Stratton, Frampton and Sydling St. Nicholas. The Benefices of Charminster and Stinsford merged with the Chalk Stream on 11th July 2017.
She is ably assisted by retired priests, the Rev'd Dr. Rob van der Hart, the Rev'd Dick Luther and the Rev'd Bruce Dixon.
Church Lane
Stinsford
Dorchester
DT2 8PT
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