The church is notable as the possible burial place of King Beorhtric,[3] and for the discovery of five stones with Brittonic inscriptions dating to the 7th to 9th centuries.

[2] In April 2023, a criminal gang use explosives to steal a 450-year-old Elizabethan chalice worth £30,000 from a locked safe in the vestry of Lady St Mary Church.

The robust tower is at the west end of the church and is built in four stages, with diagonal buttressing to the lower three.

[2] The first recorded rector of the church was Peter de Deserto (1302–08) who followed Prior Nicholas Bynet (c. 1296).

In 1678 the rectory was annexed to that of Holy Trinity, Wareham, and the first rector of both parishes was John Jones.