Whitchurch Canonicorum

including the Chapelry of Fishponds Bottom

The Parish Church of St. Candida (or St. Wite) and Holy Cross, Whitchurch Canonicorum, Dorset, courtesy of Michael Day's Dorset Churches web site

Whitchurch (or Whitechurch) Canonicorum lies in Marshwood Vale in the west of the County of Dorsetshire. To the west is Catherston Lewiston, Wootton Fitzpaine and Hawkchurch. To the north is Marshwood and to the east is Symondsbury and Chideock with Stanton St Gabriel. It is a very large parish 5 miles west north west from Bridport. The very ancient church of St. Candida and St Cross, is unique in being the only parish church in England containing the bones of its patron saint. The Saint's relics are in a stone altar. Chideock, Stanton St Gabriel, and Marshwood were chapelries of Whitchurch Canonicorum. There is a chapel of ease at Fishponds Bottom dedicated to St John the Baptist and a Congregational chapel at Morecombelake.

The parish comprises 4253 acres used for wheat, barley, oats and beans. In 1884 Yards and Gerrards Farm were transferred to Marshwood and Rivelsea to Bettiscombe. Post Offices by the church and at Morecombelake, also National Schools in the same locations and a police station in the village. Population in 1891 was 837

Sir George Somers (1554-1610) was the Mayor of Lyme Regis and later Governor of The Somers Isles (Bermuda). He died "of a surfeit in eating of a pig", on 9 November 1610 in Bermuda. His heart was buried in Bermuda but his body, pickled in a barrel, was landed on the Cobb at Lyme Regis in 1618. A volley of muskets and cannon saluted his last journey to the church at Whitchurch Canonicorum where his body is buried. It is also the burial place of Sir Robin Day as well as the Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov.

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