St. Mary and St. Nicholas Church at WIlton

This parish church - dating from 1845 - could put some cathedrals to shame both on grounds of sheer size and the quality and style of the decoration. Described on local road signs as "The Italianate Church" it is described in the church guidebook as being Tuscan inspired.
When Wilton's old medieval church showed signs of decay and subsequent collapse, the Hon. Sidney Herbert [friend of Florence Nightingale] commissioned 34-year-old Thomas Henry Wyatt, diocesan architect for Salisbury, and his partner David Brandon to build a new church on the outskirts of Wilton.

Costing the [then] huge sum of £20,000, the team followed Herbert's taste for Italian architecture and produced an extremely unconventional parish church. They dispensed with the traditional east-west alignment to have the building face south-west so as to meet the adjacent road square-on.

The building is inspired by the basilica style of Roman public buildings which was popularised by some early Christian churches built when Christianity was adopted as the state religion. The church tower is a separate 'campanile' linked the the main building by a short length of cloister in which every cloister column is different.
Two lions - carved from stone brought from the Isle of Man - support the main door arch.
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