Church of St Mary is a Grade II* listed building in the Dorset local planning authority area, England. First listed on 14 July 1955. A Victorian Church.
Church of St Mary
- WRENN ID
- last-pilaster-woodpecker
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- Dorset
- Constituency
- North Dorset MP: Simon Hoare (Con)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 14 July 1955
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Victorian
- Address
- Church of St Mary, Main Street, Turnworth
- OS grid reference
- ST 821 074
- Coordinates
- 50.86663, -2.25549
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Mary is a church with a 15th-century west tower and the remainder dating to 1869, designed by G R Crickmay, following plans by J Hicks, with some input from Thomas Hardy. It is constructed of banded flint and rubble, with a tiled roof featuring stone copings. The plan includes a west tower, nave, chancel, a north aisle with an organ chamber, and a south porch.
The west tower is of two stages, featuring an octagonal north vice, diagonal buttresses, a plain parapet with a string supporting gargoyles. A 4-centred opening on the west side now contains a 19th-century window. Above this is a 3-light 19th-century window with a pointed head, Perpendicular tracery, and a label with head-stops. The belfry windows are of two lights with pointed heads and returned labels. The main body of the church is windowed with chamfered lancets. The east chancel window has three graduated, trefoiled lancets. A pointed, chamfered south doorway is present on the chancel, and the porch has a pointed arch of two chamfered orders with a label terminating in head-stops.
Inside, a three-bay arcade features pointed arches with flat soffits and keel mouldings to the arrises. The arcade is supported by round piers with moulded bases and carved capitals in an early French gothic style, attributed to Thomas Hardy. A similar arch connects the chancel to the organ chamber, and the chancel arch is also similar, with roll mouldings and springing from carved angel respond corbels. A restored 15th-century, moulded, pointed tower arch has a continuous outer chamfer and inner mouldings, terminating in 19th-century carved respond corbels. A chamfered 4-centred vice doorway is also present. The east chancel window has a shafted rear-arch. The nave roof is scissor-braced, springing from oversized head corbels, while the chancel has a boarded waggon roof, and the aisle features a collar-truss roof. There is a 19th-century shafted wooden pulpit and an elaborate 19th-century font decorated with carved stone biblical scenes. Various 19th and 20th-century monuments are present, some reset, including a tablet with a sarcophagus and weeper commemorating Mark Davis, who died in 1832, and was made by Simmonds of Blandford. 19th-century encaustic tiles and glass are also included.
Local climate
Church of St Mary receives an average of 820 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 52% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is greater than that of 64% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 28 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 69% of listed buildings. Of these, 11 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings