Dorset Village – Whitchurch Canonicorum
Joël Lacey takes his camera to the spiritual heart of the Marshwood Vale
Published in October ’18
The rather beautiful cottage Old Cross lies at the conjunction of four village roads: Becklands Lane, Lower Lane, Goodens Hill and Berne Lane
With its 21 letters and seven syllables, Whitchurch Canonicorum is certainly a mouthful to compete with any place name in Dorset. The first part of that name refers either to the light-coloured stone from which the church is built (from hwit, the Old English word for white) or, more likely, to the church’s dedication to St Wite, and the second part to the fact that the village and the living from the land around it belonged at one point to the Canons of Salisbury and Wells Cathedrals.
The only church in England to have a saint’s relics within (along with Westminster Abbey), and the only one at all to have its own saint’s relics within its walls
The dedication of the church is unique, whether to St Candida and the Holy Cross or to St Wite and St Cross; Candida is the Latin form of Wite, and although there was no such person as St Cross, it is used as a synonym for the Holy Cross. Along with Westminster Abbey, it is the only church in England to still have a saint’s relics buried within it. Unlike Westminster Abbey, it is dedicated to that saint, St Wite, whose feast day is 3 October. There has been a church on this site since Saxon times. It is said to have been built by Alfred the Great, who bequeathed the village to his son, Ethelward. William the Conqueror gave its living to his personal chaplain, Guntard. Now it is known as the Cathedral of the Vale and apart from the relics of St Wite, it is the last resting place of many local people of note and also of three internationally famous sons.
Nearly all roads lead to Bridport from this well-maintained fingerpost at Whitchurch Cross
• Sir Robin Day – cited as the ‘grand inquisitor’ in his memorial stone – was a forensic interviewer, presenter of Question Time and the man who was the driving force behind campaigns both the televising of parliament and the introduction of the National Lottery.
The English text side of the grave of state-murdered Bulgarian dissident, Georgi Markov. The other side of the headstone is carved in Cyrillic text
• Admiral Sir George Summers – the man who is thought to have inspired the story of Shakespeare’s The Tempest – was also the man who established the colony of Bermuda.
This gate in the wall opposite the lane leading up to the church likely led up to the rectory in times past, given its ecclesiastical design
• Georgi Markov was a Bulgarian defector who worked for the BBC World Service. In an eerie reflection of current events, he was assassinated with the aid of the Soviet KGB by means of poison on the orders of the then communist Bulgarian government, of whom Markov was trenchantly critical. A poison pellet containing ricin was thought to have been fired into the back of his leg by an umbrella gun as Markov waited for a bus on Waterloo Bridge in London. He died four days later.
The beautiful barrel-vaulted ceiling of Whitchurch Canonicorum’s ‘cathedral of the vale’: St Candida & Holy Cross Church
Within the church, described as Dorset’s finest parish church by a number of architectural and historical figures, there is a lovely barrel roof and a 13th-century foramina tomb – a tomb with openings – that houses the remains of St Wite/
St Candida.
a beautifully situated cottage near the churchyard
The village has both a Candida House and a St Wite House within a stone’s throw of the churchyard. From the river Char to the west of the village to the Five Bells Cross in the east, there is a whole range of different housing, but a good deal of it is lovely. There are enough chocolate box thatched cottages as well as beautifully maintained larger properties and sensitively designed and environmentally friendly new builds that one can comfortably describe the village as highly attractive. The former national school is now a village hall and, whilst there is now no village school, there is a two- to five-years pre-school open Tuesday to Friday during term time.
Arrow slits as an aesthetic touch on a new-build extension is one of a number of buildings with character in the village
As well as a village hall and church, Whitchurch Canonicorum also has the third requisite for any village to still be able to call itself a village: a pub, the Five Bells Inn, pretty much at the village’s high point, so it’s a downhill walk home.
The village in the vale, shot from the Five Bells junction
