Church of St Mary

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ST 66 SW 6/39

COMPTON DANDO Church of St Mary

1.2.56

G.V. II* Anglican parish church. C14, altered C15 and subsequently; chancel restored 1735 and 1905, porch restored 1793, north aisle rebuilt 1820 and vestry added in 1840. Consists of west tower, nave and south porch, north aisle, chancel and vestry. Coursed rubble with freestone dressings; roofs concealed behind ashlar parapets, embattled to the chancel.

West tower of three stages, ashlar to the lowest stage; with diagonal buttresses, plain embattled parapet with gargoyles and pinnacles; two-light plain windows to second stage and cusped windows with Somerset tracery, that on the east side has a Katherine wheel in the lower part; tall four-light perpendicular style west window, with cusped ogee heads to panels and sexfoil light above; west doorway with four-centred head and carved leaf spandrels; projecting polygonal stairtower to north-east, spirelet. Nave with clerestorey; three-light C19 perpendicular style windows with cinquefoil heads and under square hoodmoulds and relieving arches; two- and single-light cinquefoil headed lights to clerestorey; rainwater head at south-west dated TB/1783. Square south porch with parapet and datestone of 1793; restored ogee and hollow moulded door surround.

Chancel: two-light mullion and transom late perpendicular style windows (all C19 or C20); three-light curvilinear style east window; datestones of 1735 and 1905. North-east buttress of the church incorporates a decorated stone probably from a Roman altar at Bath: two niches, each with a figure, one is said to be Hercules and the other Apollo. In c2000 the stone was replaced with a facsimile, and relocated to the Roman Baths Museum, Bath

Interior: tall tower arch of two wave mouldings. North arcade of two bays with piers of alternating hollows and shafts, the capitals and abaci are treated as a strip; double chamfered arches. Pulpit and font of 1883. Monuments; Brand, died 1731, inscribed plaque in enriched border with cherubs, skulls and vegetation.

Listing NGR: ST6456664655