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Dist:0.1km<br/>Taken from Handley camp site 15 minutes after the sun went down.

©Simon Barnes

Dist:0.2km<br/>St. Mary's Church takes part in Dorset Wildlife Trust's "Living Churchyard Project"; parts of the churchyard are left unmown, here, until grasses have set seed and birds can harvest their seed. http://www.dorsetwildlifetrust.org.uk/living_churchyards_and_cemeteries.html

©Mike Faherty

Dist:0.2km<br/>The churchyard has many old graves and gravestones.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>The tower was added to the church in 1350. The clock has two faces, one facing the village and the other facing what was the national school, now the vicarage.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>The handle to the door of the north porch.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>Substantial restoration work is taking place at the church and the image shows the new limestone floor being laid across the back of the church to make a new social area and space for the restored font.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>The footpath to Deanland passes through the churchyard.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>Fourteenth century porch.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>A church has stood on this site for almost a thousand years and one existed here in Norman and perhaps pre-Norman times.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>Church Tower for Six penny Handley Parish Church

©Dennis simpson

Dist:0.2km<br/>

©Chris Downer

Dist:0.2km<br/>The late-Norman, Purbeck marble font is under the bell tower.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>Despite the size and importance of the village of Sixpenny Handley the church does not have the support of any landed gentry and this explains the lack of elaborate memorials and tombs, both inside and outside the church.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>The yew tree is beside the churchyard path.
The ancient tradition that this evergreen sheltered the first Christian missionaries to Britain before their churches were built is one of the many explanations put forward to account for the large numbers of yews found in country churchyards. The yew is also a life symbol, and was sometimes scattered on graves. The longbows of medieval archers came from straight, knot-free lengths cut from tall, selected trees. But these were unlikely to be churchyard yews � the best bow staves were imported from Spain.

©Trish Steel

Dist:0.2km<br/>Although the cut mark is covered in lichen it is in very good condition. For a view of the church [[855307]] and http://www.bench-marks.org.uk/bm34400

A bench mark is an Ordnance Survey arrowhead sign found on walls, bridges, churches and specially erected triangulation pillars where the altitude above sea-level has been accurately measured by surveyors. The arrowhead points to a horizontal line above it which marks the exact altitude. With rivets and pivots there is no datum (horizontal line) cut, the pointed-to horizontal surface defining the datum height.

The walls of the church are covered in large patches of lichen. Lichens do not have roots, but absorb water and gases through their upper surface, and are therefore sensitive to atmospheric pollution. For this reason they are rarely found around cities and grow best on the wetter west side of the British Isles. Those on trees thrive best on the sunny, south-west aspects of trunks and branches. Disappearance of lichen species can be used to detect rising levels of air pollution. There are three main types. The encrusting forms, including the bright orange/dark yellow 'Xanthoria' grow on roofs, walls, gravestones, signs and tree trunks. Leaf-like species develop flat lobes spreading over bark or stones, and shrubby forms which grow vertically from the ground or hang from trees. Few have common names.

©Trish Steel

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