page_title: Milton Abbey School
section_title: Abbey Church
hierarchical_section_title: Milton Abbey School / Abbey Church
caption_attribution_description: English: Milton Abbey, Panorama
context_page_description: Milton Abbey school is an independent school for day and boarding pupils in the village of Milton Abbas, near Blandford Forum in Dorset, in South West England. It has 224 pupils as of September 2019, in five houses: Athelstan, Damer, Hambro, Hodgkinson and Tregonwell. The school was founded in 1954 and is co-educational.
  The school has a rural campus, with facilities that include a gym, swimming pool, shooting range, golf course, a 320-seat theatre, art department and design block, an astro turf hockey pitch, an outward bound area, a 15th-century dining hall, an Abbey chapel that can be traced back to the 10th century and grounds designed by Lancelot "Capability" Brown. Recent building developments include a cycling training facility and interactive golf simulator. The main house, which was built by Joseph Damer, 1st Earl of Dorchester from 1780 onwards, houses the administrative hub of the Estate, classrooms, the Staff Common Room, the King's Room, two of the boys' boarding houses and a girls' boarding house. Two newer buildings finished in 2013 hold the remaining girls' and boys' boarding houses.
context_section_description: The Abbey forms the central heart of the school. A chapel service takes place for the whole school twice a week. On Monday there is a house assembly and Wednesday a whole school assembly. On Sundays the school gathers for a formal Sunday worship, and there are regular communion services throughout the term. The school, although a Church of England foundation, welcomes people of any faith, and also of none.
  The abbey church is built in a mixture of Ham stone, Chilmark stone and flint and consists only of the choir, central tower and transepts. Its style is mostly decorated gothic dating from the mid-14th century with some 15th-century details in the tower and north transept. The eastern Lady Chapel was demolished after the suppression and some alterations were made by Wyatt in the late 18th century. 
  The Earl and Countess of Dorchester were also generous to the church, and their joint tomb, designed by Robert Adam with sculpture by Agostino Carlini, is to be found in the north transept. Perhaps the most striking feature of the church's interior, however, is its south window, designed as a Tree of Jesse by Augustus Pugin. Other features of interest are the 14th-century pulpitum and sedilia, the 15th-century reredos and pyx canopy, and the 16th-century monument to John Tregonwell.
caption: Milton Abbey Chapel and main building
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