Stockwood is a village in west Dorset, England, around eight miles south-west of Sherborne and less than a mile away from Chetnole railway station on the Heart of Wessex Line. There are a few houses on the road leading to the A37 between Yeovil and Dorchester.
St Edwold’s Church is often described as Dorset's smallest.[1] The church nestles next to a farmhouse directly under the wooded heights of Bubb Down. The porch has the date "1636" inscribed, reflecting the fact that the church was rebuilt to some extent in the seventeenth century. However, John Newman and Nikolaus Pevsner in their Buildings of England volume describe it as "Perp, with Henry VIII side windows and a three-light E window with panel tracery," and also refer to the "delightfully naive bell-turret, round, with a cap on four stumpy columns and a big grotesque face."[2] Inside, the church is very plainly furnished. The dedication to St Edwold (9th century) is unique in Dorset. Edwold was the brother of St Edmund the Martyr, King of East Anglia, and he lived as a recluse at nearby Cerne after his sibling’s death. It is not entirely clear why Stockwood church is dedicated to Edwold, but Kenneth Smith's guidebook suggests that he may have also had a cell here as well as at Cerne.[3] The Church is a Grade I listed building and is cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust.
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