The church is dedicated to St Nicholas of Myra and is near to the centre of this stone built village and is one of the oldest churches in the county, with a Saxon door blocked up in the 12th century. A lot of restoration work was carried out by the Victorians in 1869 after it became so neglected that services were held in the school.

In the churchyard rests Benjamin Jesty who was a Dorset Yeoman and was said to be the first person to inoculate anyone with cowpox to ward off smallpox. Jesty appeared before a board of doctors at the London Vaccine Pock Institution in the same year as the Battle of Trafalgar. On his headstone is inscribed  'An upright and honest man, particularly noted for having been the first person (known) that introduced the Cow Pox by inoculation, and who from his great strength of mind, made the experiment from the cow on his wife and two sons in the year 1774'.

He noticed that dairymaids and the cowherds hardly suffered from smallpox but cowpox which was milder was more common so he used a knitting needle  and inoculated his family with cowpox before Jenner had started his experiments.

On nearby St Aldhelm's Head is the 12th century chapel of St Aldhelm which overlooks the English Channel. Worth Matravers was for hundreds of years one of the main quarrying centres for Purbeck marble and around the village can be seen some of the old surface workings, and this dark grey marble supports the tower and spire of Salisbury Cathedral

LISTEN TO THE CHURCH BELLS WHILE VIEWING PHOTOGRAPHS OF THE CHURCH