Whitchurch Canonicorum

Whitchurch Canonicorum or Whitechurch Canonicorum is a village in south-west Dorset, England, situated in the Marshwood Vale five miles northwest of Bridport.

The village has a population of 647 (2001); 10.1% of dwellings are second homes. It is also the burial place of Bulgarian dissident Georgi Markov.

The church is noteworthy as containing the only shrine in Britain to have survived the Reformation with its relics intact, apart from that of Saint Edward the Confessor in Westminster Abbey. The saint in question is the somewhat obscure Saint Wite (Latinised as Saint Candida) after whom the church and the village are named. Some have trued to identify her as the Breton Saint Gwen Teirbron. However a local tradition considers her to be a Saxon woman, probably a hermit or anchoress martyred by Danes in the course of a raid in the year 831 [ [http://dialspace.dial.pipex.com/town/avenue/pd49/places/wells/wite.html St Wite's Well ] ] .

Sir George Somers (1554 - 1610) was the Mayor of Lyme Regis and later Governor of The Somers Isles (Bermuda) he died "of a surfeit in eating of a pig", on November 9th 1610 in Bermuda. His heart was buried in Bermuda but his body, pickled in a barrel, was landed on the Cobb at Lyme Regis in 1618. A volley of muskets and cannon saluted his last journey to the church at Whitchurch Canonicorum where his body is buried.

The flag of Dorset makes dedication to St Wite.

ee also

*Whitchurch Canonicorum (hundred)
*Flag of Dorset, The Dorset Cross/St Wite's Cross

References

External links

* [http://www1.dorsetcc.gov.uk/LIVING/FACTS/Census2001.nsf/6cadf4da179fc19500256663004afece/36538a781919d10380256ec8005923d6?OpenDocument Census data]