The Restoration of St. Peter's Church in 1856

5 - People involved with the Restoration

The Victorian renovations at St. Peter’s church have connections to Dorset’s literary figures.

Revd William Barnes, the Dorset dialect poet whose statue stands outside St. Peter’s, was an Hon. Sec. of the Restoration Appeal Committee.
	Thomas Hardy, the author, was working for the architect’s practice at the time that Hicks drew up his plan for the 1857 additions. Hardye later signed the plan.

At the time of Revd. Thomas Wenham Knipe – he of the ‘somewhat stately proportions’ - one of the curates was the Revd Charles Powys. Powys became father of a large family, among them the three Powys authors, John Cooper Powys, Llewellyn Powys and Theodore Francis Powys.