St. Mary and St. Nicholas Church at WIlton, near Salisbury, was my last port of call on my way home for holiday in Dorset and it seemed that the fates had saved the best until last. This aircraft hangar of a 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. www.flickr.com/photos/barryslemmings/sets/72157594224590793/ to see the full set of pictures. 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. Inside material brought back from the 13th century Capocci Shrine which once stood in the Santa Maria Maggiore in Rome was used around the cloister door and again on the huge pulpit. This material includes black marble columns and coloured panels known as Cosmato work. This was created by Peter Cavalini who also designed the tomb of Edward The Confessor at Westminster Abbey but the church guide claims the Abbey's work is inferior to Wilton's. The shrine had been dismantled by 1768 and was brought to Britain by Sir William Hamilton, husband of Nelson's Emma Hamilton and later presented to Horace Walpole. Sidney Herbert later bought it all for 47 guineas. Some memorials were transferred from the old church but glass and furnishings spanning several centuries were also purchased to create the sumptuous interior. Sir Sidney Herbert was Secretary of State for War at the time of the Crimean War and was responsible for sending Florence Nightingale to the Crimea. Ironically his own mother was Russian - Katherine Woronzow, Dowager Countess of Pembroke - and she part-funded the building of Wilton Church along with her son. The former parish church was St. Mary's but the new building was built on the site of a former St. Nicholas church which was ruined by 1435. A sarcophagus containing the disturbed bones founding during building work can be found against the southern exterior wall. Old Wilton Church is now cared for by the Churches Conservation Trust and was dedicated as a garden of peace in 1938. It can be found in the centre of Wilton and is still partially roofed.