Church Of St Swithun

Church of St Swithun, North Allington

This parish church was designed by Charles Wallis and built in 1826–7 on a new site, replacing a medieval church about a mile north that had become ruinous by the 1820s. It was reordered in 1901 by C.E. Ponting, again in 1959, and had a vestry and hall added in 1991 by Angela Dudley of Humberts, Sherborne. Little is known of Wallis, who practised in Dorchester in the 1820s and designed several classical churches and public buildings. He may be the same architect who worked in Swansea in 1802–4, superintended the Mumbles Marble works at Margam, was involved with restoration of Margam Abbey from 1805–9, and was in Bristol by 1832.

The church is constructed mostly of local Bothenhampton stone, rendered and painted, with slate roofs. The plan is a simple rectangular preaching box with its orientation reversed: the entrance is at the east and the altar at the west. The building is dominated by a striking Greek Doric portico with four unfluted columns without bases but with a necking band below the capital. The columns support an entablature with triglyphs and a plain pediment. The portico is raised above four steps and rises to a drum-shaped bell turret with rectangular louvred openings and a shallow dome. Three entrances with broad moulded frames pierce the facade, the central one larger and positioned beneath the portico, while the side doors give access to the gallery stairs. Above each entrance is a large round-arched window with a moulded frame over the arch only, linked by a stringcourse at the level of the imposts. The sides of the building have five similar windows, also linked by the impost stringcourse. A moulded eaves cornice supports a flat parapet that hides the hipped slate roof. The ritual east wall is blank except for a glazed lunette over the altar, now blocked internally. L-shaped vestries and associated spaces are positioned to the east.

The interior is a spacious rectangular hall, approximately 60 feet long by 48 feet wide, with a 25-foot-high ceiling. The ceiling has been tiled but retains four original plaster roses. The lower walls are panelled with wainscots. Behind the altar is a shallow recessed arch with a lunette window in the head, now blocked. The entrance beneath the tower originally led via transverse doorways into two lobbies with broad glazed lunettes facing into the church; the north lobby is now a vestry and the south a baptistery, its lunette removed. The west end features a large gallery on cast-iron columns with panels partly filled with iron interlaced arcading. The gallery's centre was brought forward to accommodate the organ, probably in 1857. A door in the south-east corner, created around 1991, provides access to the new vestries and hall.

The original deal pews survive with panelled bench ends and mahogany top rails. They were lowered and their doors removed in 1901, and were rearranged to form a central walkway. The gallery retains seven tiers of original seating on the south side. The windows contain green and yellow glass, probably of late 19th or early 20th-century date. The lunette over the altar was blocked internally around 1900–6; of the original glazing of 1827, about half survives, arranged in eight concentric bands with rays of glory, running scrolls, fleurs-de-lys, paterae and palmettes, mainly in gold and red. The Blessed Sacrament altar on the ritual north side has a Gothic reredos of gilded oak, designed for the high altar in 1902. The high altar and oak communion rail date from 1959, as does the large crucifixion figure hanging behind it, carved by Francis Stevens of Faith Craft Studios. To its south stands one of the two original pulpits, painted and gilded timber, square on plan with a single panel on each face and fluted and chamfered angles. It has been lowered during one of the reorderings. The staircase to the pulpit has stick balusters and ramped mahogany rails. An octagonal Gothic font dates from 1864.

The 1991 additions comprise a low hall and vestry connected to the building by a glazed corridor that encloses two sides of a small courtyard behind the chancel. The new work is generally contextual in style, with arched openings, slate roofs and rendered walls. The church sits at the top of a slope with a central path from the gates, flanked by numerous 19th-century gravestones. The main gate has ashlar piers with an iron overthrow and lamp, dated 1850.

Adjustments to the seating began in 1849 (recorded in the ICBS archive). The left-hand pulpit and reading desk were removed in 1854, and a gallery organ was installed in 1857. The church reopened after Ponting's reordering in November 1901, by which time elements of Anglo-Catholic worship had been introduced. Later reorderings included the addition of two side altars.