Description
Mappowder, a parish in Dorsetshire, 6 miles NE by E of Cerne Abbas, and 6 SW of Sturminster Newton station on the Somerset and Dorset Joint railway. It has a post office under Blandford; money order and telegraph office, Haselbury Bryan. Acreage, 1901; population, 195. Stone is quarried. The living is a rectory in the diocese of Salisbury; value, £280 with residence. The church is a fine edifice with a tower, has been restored, and contains a Norman font, an effigies of a crusader, and monuments of the Cokers. John Coker, author of the " Survey of Dorset," was a native.
Parish Church
The church of SS. Peter and Paul is a small edifice of stone, in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave of three bays, south aisle, south porch, and a western tower, with pinnacles, containing 5 bells : there is a memorial to a boy Crusader: the church was restored in 1865, and has sittings for 120 persons.
The register dates from the year 1653.
