One of the most interesting features is a 12th century corbel table running under the roofline. The corbels are carved with an array of figures including a musician playing a harp, a rabbit, a bird, a running animal, and a sheela-na-gig, a fertility symbol of a woman displaying her genitals.

In the churchyard is the grave of Benjamin Justy (d. 1816), a farmer who may well have been the first person to use cowpox to inoculate against smallpox. Justy vaccinated his wife and family with cowpox vaccine in 1774, well before Dr Edward Jenner popularised vaccination.

britainexpress.com/counties/dorset/churches/worth-matravers.htm

Javi Jaavii

October 8, 2023

Built in the early 1100s AD, this is one of the oldest churches in Dorset.

It is not known with certainty whether it was built or reconstructed, as there are indications that there may have been a church here already in the late Saxon period.

JakobusPilger

July 11, 2024

Saint NICHOLAS, Bishop of Myra, to whom the church in Worth Matravers is dedicated, is – alongside Saint Martin, Bishop of Tours in France – one of the most popular saints of all. His feast day in the calendar of saints, December 6th, is probably known to almost every child. On the eve of this day, children used to put their shoes or boots – which had of course been carefully polished – outside the door so that Saint Nicholas could fill them with gifts during the night. In more agricultural areas, it was also customary for children to put out a small gift of food for the donkey, Saint Nicholas's mount (according to another tradition, it was a white horse).

Translated by Google •

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Elevation 150 m

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Location: Worth Matravers, Purbeck, Dorset, South West England, England, United Kingdom

St Nicholas' Church, Worth Matravers

1. The Smugglers' Ways loop — Dorset

2. Winspit Quarry – Worth Matravers Village loop from Kingston

3. Winspit Quarry – Worth Matravers Village loop from Langton Matravers

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