St Mary, Dinton

St Mary the Virgin is a Grade I parish church on St Marys Road, Dinton, Wiltshire, in the Diocese of Salisbury and the Nadder Valley team, an aisleless cruciform church begun in the late twelfth century.

Overview

Historic England lists a late-twelfth-, late-thirteenth-, fourteenth- and fifteenth-century church restored in 1873–75 by William Butterfield. The fabric is rubble stone with tiled roofs. The plan is aisleless and cruciform, with a 1870s south vestry and north porch. The late-twelfth-century north doorway, now within the porch, has attached shafts with stylised leaf capitals. The thirteenth-century north transept has stepped east lancets. The fourteenth-century chancel has three-light windows with reticulated tracery and a large five-light east window with intersecting tracery. A two-stage crossing tower has Perpendicular louvred bell openings and a battlemented parapet. An octagonal stair turret with a conical roof stands in the angle of nave and north transept.

The Victoria County History notes that until the Dissolution Dinton was a prebend of Shaftesbury Abbey, and that the nave, crossing and transepts are early thirteenth-century, with a Purbeck marble font of the same period. Two upper tower stages and the crossing vault are mid-fifteenth-century. The nave has a four-bay rafter wagon roof; the crossing has a quadripartite rib vault. Six bells include one possibly of the fourteenth century. The church stands in the Dinton Conservation Area, near National Trust land at Dinton Park, and is open daily.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1146120
• Victoria County History: Dinton