Sherborne Abbey

About

Sherborne Abbey, otherwise the Abbey Church of St. Mary the Virgin, is a Church of England church in Sherborne in the English county of Dorset. It was formerly a Saxon Catholic cathedral (705–1075) and a Benedictine abbey church (998–1539), before becoming a Church of England parish church in 1539 during the dissolution of the monasteries. In England's Thousand Best Churches (1999) by Simon Jenkins, it is one of only 18 churches given a five-star rating.