Church
The parish church is dedicated to St Thomas. It is based on Saxon and medieval origins, but was almost totally rebuilt in 1819 to 1820 for Samuel Hood, 2nd Baron Bridport. The church contains monuments to the families of Hood (Viscount Bridport) and their predecessors the Viscounts Nelson, who gained the title through Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson. These include, on the chancel south wall, a commemoration of Alexander Hood, who died in 1814, which was designed and signed by Sir John Soane, with a black marble base topped by a white marble monument on Ionic columns framing the memorial plaque. Mounted on the north nave wall is a fragment of the altar cloth used in the Coronation Service of Queen Elizabeth II. The church is designated by English Heritage as a Grade II* listed building.
In the churchyard is a white marble monument, dating from the early 20th century, showing a figure of St Michael. It commemorates Alexander Nelson Hood, 4th Duke of Bronté, 2nd First Viscount Bridport (created in 1868) who died in 1904. A note in the church states that for many years the statue was laid flat, as the white figure at night scared too many locals. There are also two 18th-century chest tombs, made from hamstone, one of which commemorates John Northcote, who died in 1738.
Read more about this topic: Cricket St Thomas
Famous quotes containing the word church:
“To impose celibacy on such a large body as the clergy of the Catholic Church is not to forbid it to have wives but to order it to be content with the wives of others.”
—Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778)
“He prayed more deeply for simple selflessness than he had ever prayed before—and, feeling an uprush of grace in the very intention, shed the night in his heart and called it light. And walking out of the little church he felt confirmed in not only the worth of his whispered prayer but in the realization, as well, that Christ had become man and not some bell-shaped Corinthian column with volutes for veins and a mandala of stone foliage for a heart.”
—Alexander Theroux (b. 1940)
“Now, honestly: if a large group of ... demonstrators blocked the entrances to St. Patrick’s Cathedral every Sunday for years, making it impossible for worshipers to get inside the church without someone escorting them through screaming crowds, wouldn’t some judge rule that those protesters could keep protesting, but behind police lines and out of the doorways?”
—Anna Quindlen (b. 1953)