Church Opening Times
All Saints Church – As much as possible we try to keep the church open from 09.00 until 16.00 on Mondays to Saturdays for those who wish to enjoy its architecture or for a place of quiet and prayer (subject to Funerals, Weddings and other services). The church is locked on a Sunday after the main 0930 morning service and is locked on bank holidays, unless they are a church festival ie Christmas Day. If you are making a special visit to the church, you may wish to contact the Rector or Churchwardens in advance to ensure you can gain access to the church. Details on our contacts page.
History
The present building was completed in 1455, although there was at least one earlier church on or near the same site.It is an important example of the Perpendicular style of architecture and is still essentially the building as completed in the fifteenth century. Sculptured heads of Henry VI, king when the church was built, and his queen, Margaret of Anjou, face each other across the nave.The font, perpendicular in style, is of the same date as the church. The west tower, looking out over Lyme Bay, continues to be a notable landmark.
Until the early part of the nineteenth century All Saints’ was the parish church of Weymouth.The parish to the east of the harbour was known as Melcombe.With the expansion of population in the nineteenth century other churches were built; first Holy Trinity, by the harbour, paid for by the rector of the day, the Revd George Chamberlaine, then St Paul’s in Westham, and finally in the middle of the twentieth century, St Edmund’s in Lanehouse Rocks Road.
The present parish, with a population of over 8,000 which is growing with several new housing areas, consists of the old village of Wyke Regis and much of Weymouth’s post- war housing expansion between that and the town.
Among those buried in unmarked graves in the churchyard are Captain John Wordsworth, brother of the poet William,and many of the 261 who perished with him when the Earl of Abergavenny sank in Weymouth Bay in February 1805. Other notable burials include one William Lewis, a smuggler whose gravestone inspired the author of the locally set novel Moonfleet, and William Thompson, the nineteenth century pioneer of underwater photography.
All the old records of baptisms, marriages and burials are housed in the Dorset County Record Office in Dorchester.
Details of incumbents of Wyke Regis go back to 1263
- Nicholas Lungspee 1263;
- William Harvey 1299
- Simon de Migham 1302
- Simon de Stopham 1307
- William de Winterborn 1314
- Simon de Moenes 1316
- Uricus de Rupis 1316
- William Archer 1324
- Welter de Shryeborn ?
- William Stanton 1349
- Henry Chelford 1408
- Thomas Wassayl 1445
- Thomas Hall 1450;
- William Stoke 1453 – (It was during the rectorate of William Stoke that the present church was built.)
- William Gifford 1467
- Edmund Hampden 1469
- John Baker 1476
- Henry Sutten 1480
- Henry Sutton M.D 1495
- Benedict Dodyn 1497
- William Bower 1519
- Williams Medow 1531
- Thomas Watson 1545
- Thomas Haywood 1553
- John Sprint 1574
- William Garth 1576
- Nicholas Jeffries 1584
- Eleazer Duncomb 1631
- Edward Quarles 1631
- Humph. Henchman 1640 – (Henchman joined the Kings forces in 1643 and Henry Way was appointed by the House of Commons to be his successor. Humphrey Henchman gave his name to the expression “henchman” – reputedly because of his firm commitment to the cause of the King).
- Edward Buckler 1650
- Edward Butler 1652
- Edward Damer whose date of collating is not known, was deprived of the living at the restoration.
- Thomas Clendon 1662
- Richard Drake 1667
- Robert Wishart 1681
- William Hunt 1689
- William Rayner 1720
- Abraham Davis 1730
- Michael Festin 1753
- John Cutting 1765
- Samuel Payne 1792
- Samuel Byam 1802
- George Chamberlaine; 1809
- John Menzies 1837
- John Thomas 1847
- John Hill 1851
- Henry Pigou 1855
- Richard England 1882 – (During the major part of England’s rectorate the Parish was ministered by a curate in charge, one Thomas Bell- Salter).
- Sidney Edmund Davies 1899
- Edward B Thurston 1918
- Ernest Pratt 1942
- Philip Rigby Rounds 1967
- Keith Hugo 1988 to 2006
- Deborah Smith April 2007 to present
