Description
Chideock, a parish in Dorsetshire, on the coast, 3 miles W of Bridport station on the G.W.R., under which it has a post office. Acreage, 1978 of land, and 27 of tidal water and foreshore; population, 633. The moat of Chideock Castle, erected in 1379, may still be seen. A Roman road crosses the parish westwards, and a streamlet traverses a deep valley southward to the sea, near Down Cliffs. The living is a vicarage in the diocese of Salisbury; net value, £166 with residence. Patron, the Bishop of Salisbury. The church is good. It was thoroughly restored in 1880, and in 1883 a new chancel was built. There is a recumbent effigy on a black marble tomb. There are Wesleyan and Roman Catholic chapels.
Parish Church
The church of St Giles is an ancient building of stone, mainly in the Perpendicular style, with traces of earlier work, and consists of chancel, nave, south aisle, south porch, north transeptal chapel and an embattled western tower containing a clock and 5 bells, dating from 1603; a new clock was provided in 1897: the font has a shallow octagonal bowl, supported on a panelled stem: at the east end of the south aisle is an altar tomb of dark marble, on which rests the figure of a knight in plate armour, perhaps representing Sir John Arundell: in the north transept are three memorial tablets, to William Fitzherbert of this parish, gent. dated 1761; Simeon Bullen esq. 1822, and John Bullen esq. 1852: the organ was erected in 1893, at a cost of £190: there are five stained windows: in 1880 the church underwent a thorough restoration, under the superintendence of Mr. G.R. Crickmay, architect, of Weymouth, at a total cost of about £1,100; during the course of the work a rude painting was discovered on the north wall: in 1883 a new chancel was built, at a cost of £600, from designs by Mr. G.R. Crickmay: the church affords 270 sittings.
The register dates from the year 1654.
