Moordown St John's

A school chapel, licensed for church services, was built in Moordown in 1853, with funds raised by parishioners of St. Peter's Church, Bournemouth. It was dedicated to St. John in the Wilderness - quite suitably, for at that point Moordown was still very much a frontier settlement, with a population of about 300.

The church moved to its present site in the 1870s, partly in response to the development of Winton at Moordown's southern edge. Winton had been laid out by the Talbot sisters, who, suspicious of religion, decided that no place of worship would be erected on their land. This prompted Alexander Morden Bennett, the zealous vicar of St. Peter's, to move the church to its present site at the junction of Vicarage and Wimborne Roads - right on the border of the Talbot sisters' new development.

Like the old school-chapel, the new church was designed by G. E. Street, and dedicated to St. John; it was consecrated in 1874 (though the present tower was not added until 1923-4).

The old-school chapel can still be seen further north along Wimborne Road. It became a builder’s merchants before being developed into residential properties - Old St. John's Mews.

The cache is placed within the church yard with the kind permission of the Rector, Michael Smith. 

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