The Chantry

The Chantry was built on the south side of the churchyard in 1424 to house 3 chantry priests. Since the 16 th . century it has changed from being a private house to a school several times over and it was here that William Barnes the Dorset dialect poet had his school between 1827 and 1835. Most of the original building is well preserved but it was extensively renovated in the 1960s. There are two large ponds fed by springs in the garden and there is a record of a corn mill beside one of them, in 1280.