During the Second World War, when the town was under German occupation and all its citizens had vacated the town, the church was used as a store, and its premises were damaged. A machine-gun post was set up then in the belfry, and still-visible graffiti on the stone work left by soldiers bears mute witness to the occupation. Pews had been removed from the church premises. After the war, the church figured in substantial restoration work in the town, completed in 1953. The Bishop of Winchester rededicated the church on 11 June of that year. A redeeming event recorded in 1998 was the restoration of an old Bible dated 1683 and bound in with a copy of the Book of Common Prayer and a Metrical Psalter dated 1679. It was partially damaged by dampness but had been substituted with manuscript sheets exquisitely engraved in small copper plates. The Bible was restored to the church by the widow of a soldier who had taken it from there and had stored it in his library in Germany.