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FOURTH CHURCH ON THIS SITE
1. The original church, of which only the tower remains, was a humble building of Saxon or Norman origin. The tower might have been separate from the church.
2. Early English, built about AD 1250, with pointed lancet windows. It was cruciform, with a narrow aisle. Fragments of Purbeck marble shafts have been preserved.
3. In 1620 the Church was found to be in a bad state by the Rector, Rev Brune Cockram. It was largely rebuilt, while retaining some of the window tracery and original walls. Old prints, to be seen at the back of the church, show an undistinguished building with a plaster barrel ceiling and later cumbersome galleries right across the west end (with organ) and down the length of the north aisle. A huge three decker pulpit stood halfway down the south wall and the nave was filled with box pews.
The south-west window in the present Nave, the “Christmas” window, formed part of the East window of the 1620 church, though the stained glass is of later date. The Vestry window dates from the fifteenth century, again incorporated from the older building. As can be inferred from the straight joint in the stonework, this window occupies what was originally a doorway, probably with double doors, one of the main west entrance of the church.
The small hexagonal font of Purbeck marble dated 1663 is now in the daughter church of St Mark’s at Herston.
4. 1859 Swanage had begun to attract visitors and residents as a quiet watering place. Rev R Duncan Travers, the energetic Rector, had the existing church demolished, except for the tower, and rebuilt on a more spacious scale with a wide aisleless nave and chancel with galleried transepts.
In 1907, the size of the Church was almost doubled by adding a North Aisle as wide as the nave, and extending back to the west wall of the tower.
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