St Mary, Charminster, Dorset

At a quick glance the exterior looks all Perp, with a handsome tower with sixteen pinnacles, three grouped together at each corner of the parapet. However looking closely a Norman clerestory is evident. Inside Norman arcades, fat circular columns but with pointed arches. Marion hugged a pillar - she loves Norman apparently ;-) I used the font as a brace for the camera as is evident in the photo! Two purbeck canopied tombs in the south aisle, one with the indent of a lost brass, and also a coloured kneeler monument to Grace Pole d1636. There is also a good Jacobean pulpit. The chancel is surprisingly short and bare and dates from c1838; the east window however is a reset C17 original with unusual tracery