The History of All Saints Wyke Regis 

The current church building was finished in 1455, but there was at least one earlier church nearby. It is a key example of Perpendicular architecture and remains much as it was in the fifteenth century. Sculpted heads of Henry VI, who was king when the church was built, and his queen, Margaret of Anjou, look at each other across the nave. The font, also in the Perpendicular style, dates from the same time as the church. The west tower, overlooking Lyme Bay, is still a well-known local landmark.

Until the early 1800s, All Saints’ was the parish church for Weymouth. The area east of the harbour was called Melcombe. As the population grew in the nineteenth century, more churches were built. Holy Trinity, near the harbour, was funded by the rector at the time, Revd George Chamberlaine. Later, St Paul’s was built in Westham, and in the mid-twentieth century, St Edmund’s was added on Lanehouse Rocks Road.

Today, the parish has more than 8,000 residents and continues to grow as new housing areas are developed. It includes the old village of Wyke Regis and much of the post-war housing that stretches toward the town.

Some of those buried in unmarked graves in the churchyard include Captain John Wordsworth, brother of the poet William Wordsworth, and many of the 261 people who died with him when the Earl of Abergavenny sank in Weymouth Bay in February 1805. 

Other notable burials are William Lewis, a smuggler whose gravestone inspired the novel Moonfleet, and William Thompson, a nineteenth-century pioneer of underwater photography.

All the old records of baptisms, marriages, and burials are kept at the Dorset County Record Office in Dorchester.

Records of Wyke Regis church leaders go back to 1263. See below for the Rector's List. 

Here are some facts about our church.

The First Recorded Rector of Wyke Regis, Nicholas Longespee, was the first recorded Rector of Wyke Regis in 1263. He was born in Salisbury in 1218 and was the son of William Longespee and the grandson of Henry II.Nicholas’s father, William Longespee, was the 3rd Earl of Salisbury and the illegitimate son of Henry II and Ela of Salisbury, the 3rd Countess of Salisbury. William was also King John’s half-brother.

Before 1272, Nicholas was a canon at Salisbury Cathedral and later served as treasurer of the diocese before 1275. He became Bishop of Salisbury on 16 March 1292. Nicholas died on 18 May 1297 and is buried at Salisbury Cathedral, in the Trinity or Lady Chapel under a marble stone with brass inlay. His heart was buried at Lacock Abbey, and his organs at Ramsbury. In his will, he left £850, including money to help the poor in Wyke Regis. Nicholas’s episcopal ring is on display at Salisbury Cathedral.

His father, William, is buried in a tomb at Salisbury Cathedral. He attended the laying of the cathedral’s foundation stone and was the first person buried there. When William’s tomb was opened in 1791, a well-preserved rat, which had traces of arsenic, was found inside his skull. The rat is now on display at Salisbury Cathedral.William Thompson (1822 – 1879)

In the graveyard east of All Saints Church, Wyke Regis, there is a memorial to William Thompson, a scientific pioneer who took the world’s first underwater photograph in 1856.

Most of the headstones in this graveyard have been moved to the edges to create a park-like space, but William Thompson’s memorial near the entrance remains in its original spot. He is buried there with his wife, father, and other family members in a vault.

William Thompson was born in Hamworthy, Dorset, in June 1822. He married Sarah Slade in 1847, and they first lived at 11 Frederick Place in Weymouth before moving to 3 Gloucester Row. Thompson worked as a solicitor but had many interests. He owned large boats for trawling and dredging in Weymouth Bay, discovered new species of anemone and seaweed as a naturalist, was a keen birdwatcher, and served as a councillor and alderman on Weymouth Town Council.

One day, while stranded by bad weather at the Ferry Bridge Inn (which has since been demolished), Thompson began thinking about the strong water currents in and out of the Fleet and how they affected the Ferry Bridge’s piers. He realised it would be safer and less costly to use a camera to assess the piers’ condition rather than sending a diver.

Thompson already owned a camera and enjoyed photographing natural history subjects. He just needed to figure out how to use it underwater. Unlike later underwater photographers, he was not a diver. Instead, he lowered a plate camera, housed in a specially made waterproof wooden box, to the seabed from his boat and used a long string to operate the shutter from above. William Thompson died at 3 Gloucester Row, Weymouth, on 15 April 1879.

List of Rectors of Wyke Regis 

• Nicholas Lungspee 1263;
• William Harvey 1299
• Simon de Migham 1302
• Simon de Stopham 1307
• William de Winterborn 1314
• Simon de Moenes 1316
• Uricus de Rupis 1316
• William Archer 1324
• Welter de Shryeborn?
• William Stanton 1349
• Henry Chelford 1408
• Thomas Wassayl 1445
• Thomas Hall 1450;
• William Stoke 1453 – (It was during the rectorate of William Stoke that the present church was built.)
• William Gifford 1467
• Edmund Hampden 1469
• John Baker 1476
• Henry Sutten 1480
• Henry Sutton M.D 1495
• Benedict Dodyn 1497
• William Bower 1519
• Williams Medow 1531
• Thomas Watson 1545
• Thomas Haywood 1553
• John Sprint 1574
• William Garth 1576
•  Nicholas Jeffries 1584
• Eleazer Duncomb 1631
• Edward Quarles 1631
• Humphrey Henchman 1640 - Henchman joined the King's forces in 1643, and Henry Way was appointed by the House of Commons to be his successor. Humphrey Henchman gave his name to the expression “henchman” – reputedly because of his firm commitment to the cause of the King. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humphrey_Henchman
• Henry Way 1643
• Edward Buckler 1650
• Edward Butler 1652
• Edward Damer, whose date of collating is not known, was deprived of the living at the restoration.
• Thomas Clendon 1662
• Richard Drake 1667
• Robert Wishart 1681
• William Hunt 1689
• William Hunt was also the vicar of Whitchurch Canonicorum
• William Rayner 1720
• Abraham Davis 1730
• Michael Festin 1753
• John Cutting 1765
• Samuel Payne 1792
• Samuel Byam 1802
• George Chamberlaine 1809
• John Menzies 1837
• John Thomas 1847
•  John Hill 1851
• Henry Pigou 1855
• Richard England 1882 - (During the significant part of England’s rectorate, the Parish was ministered by a curate in charge, one Thomas Bell- Salter).
• Sidney Edmund Davies 1899
• Edward B Thurston, 1918
• Ernest Pratt 1942
• Philip Rigby Round,s 1967 to 1989
• Keith Hug,o 1989 to 2006
• Deborah Smit,h April 2007 to 18 September 2018
• Rev Brother Alasdair Kay CFC – 25th September 2019 to 4 June 2023
• John MacKenzie – from 17th October 2023