Welcome to the Benefice of Hazelbury Bryan and the Hillside Parishes
of
Belchalwell, Fifehead Neville,
Ibberton, Mappowder and Woolland
The Parish of St Mary and St James at Hazelbury Bryan with Stoke Wake
The village is Thomas Hardy’s ‘Nettlebury.’ It has a population of just over a thousand spread between the seven hamlets. Some of these have grown into each other. This is the only village of the six where development has been encouraged by the County planners over recent years, probably because it has a shop, a pub and a school. However, the bus service is almost non-existent. The County Primary School in the village has one hundred and two pupils (this includes twenty nursery pupils) on roll drawn from the parishes in the group, except Belchalwell. The school’s relationship with the church is good and school services are held in the church. Sturminster Newton High School (five miles away) takes children from eleven up to the age of eighteen. Village facilities include a shop, a pub, a village hall, and a summer café/ gallery. There are also two largish employers: Snooks Building Contractors, and part of the Hunt’s Food Group. There are a number of active societies in the village, including a lunch club at the village hall, a gardening club, an art group, an allotment society, book groups, playreaders and art groups, and the Royal British Legion. There is a recreation ground known as Alec’s Field with a sports pavilion and children’s playground. There are village cricket and football teams. The earliest known record of a church on its present site dates back to 1246. Our church is situated in the settlement known as Droop which is thought to originally have been the centre of the village, but we understand it separated out into different settlements after the Black Death. The present church seats about one hundred and thirty people, and there are currently forty-three on the Church Electoral Roll. St Mary & St James is the largest church in the Benefice and has a car park with an office and a disabled WC (currently being built). The congregation varies from about twenty on some Sundays to twenty-five to thirty for the Family Communion service. There are four services each month, with a balance between Book of Common Prayer and Common Worship. With its space, the church often plays host to special services, such as the Gift and Christingle services, the Easter service, All Souls’ Day, Trinity Sunday and Remembrance Sunday. At Christmas there is a midnight Holy Communion and a family service on Christmas Day.
There is a church choir which is composed of people from more than one parish. They attend two services at Hazelbury Bryan and one at Mappowder. A rota is prepared by a lay person for readers, and there is a good supply of people who volunteer as sides persons. A bible study is held bi-weekly in the house of one of the LLMs. There is a set of six bells which are rung on special occasions by a team drawn from surrounding villages. There is a fine Henry Dyer organ in the church which has been moved and renovated in the last six years. There is also a back-up music system linked to a sound system in the church. A team of dedicated flower ladies make sure there are always fresh flowers in the church, with special flowers for Easter, Harvest and Christmas. Each year there is also often a flower festival which usually coincides with the annual church and village fete which is held in the garden of the adjacent Manor Farm by kind permission of the owners. Their barn is also sometimes used for church activities. The PCC has a dedicated mission fund and in the past donations have been made to a number of charities both local, national and international.