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Worth-Matravers (St. Nicholas)

WORTH-MATRAVERS (St. Nicholas), a parish, in the union of Wareham and Purbeck, hundred of Rowbarrow, Wareham division of the county of Dorset, 2½miles (W. by S.) from Swanage; containing 376 inhabitants, and comprising 2646 acres by measurement. The substratum contains Purbeck stone of fine quality. In the hamlet of Woodhide is a quarry of green marble; pillars have been erected of it in some of the cathedrals, and during one year more than a hundred tons have been sent to London for the decoration of the Temple church. The living is a discharged vicarage, valued in the king's books at £8. 8. 4., and in the gift of the Rector of Swanage: the great tithes have been commuted for £214, and the vicarial for £152. The church is a very ancient structure in the Norman style, with a tower banded near the summit with a fillet sculptured in grotesque heads. The parish has the English Channel on the south, where is the noted cliff called St. Alban's Head, with a signal-house on its summit; also the remains of a very old chapel dedicated to St. Aldhelm, built and vaulted with stone, and supported by a single massive pillar with four arches, meeting in a point at the crown. Mr. Benjamin Jesty, said to have been the first person who tried with success the practice of vaccination, which he performed on his own children, resided and lies interred here.

Transcribed from A Topographical Dictionary of England, by Samuel Lewis, seventh edition, published 1858.

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