Priory Church

The Priory Church, originally known as the former Church of The Holy Trinity, St Mary and Thomas a Becket, is a Grade I listed building located in Kewstoke, dating from the 15th and early 16th centuries. The structure is built of ashlar stone, featuring a slate roof over the nave and a leaded roof on the tower. The church comprises a nave, a crossing tower, and a north aisle.

The nave consists of two bays, while the crossing has one bay. The west front is gabled and flanked by octagonal turrets, displaying a blocked west window that has been replaced by two 3-light mullioned windows. There are remains of three mutilated effigies around the window. On the south side, the nave window hood moulds remain, but the windows are blocked, with 2-light windows inserted; the western window was removed during 20th-century restoration. A 3-light cross window was inserted below. The perpendicular crossing window was restored in 1970, and the quatrefoil pierced parapet is also noted.

At the east end, there is a blocked chancel arch with an inserted door and a window above. The crossing tower is divided into two stages, featuring diagonal buttresses with setbacks that end in crocketed attached pinnacles. The first stage has 3-light perpendicular windows on the north and south sides, while the second stage has 3-light mullion and transom perpendicular windows under drip moulds on all sides, which are blank below the transom and pierced above. The quatrefoil parapet dates from the restoration in 1827.

The north aisle consists of three bays with early 16th-century buttresses between them. The windows, like those in the south nave, are blocked, with lights inserted for domestic use. The slate roof at the eaves is now lacking a parapet.

Inside, the nave has been subdivided into domestic apartments. The ground floor features Gothic plasterwork and fittings. The crossing has an incomplete early 19th-century fan-vault on panelled piers with attached shafts, along with fragmentary evidence of a pulpitum. The north aisle has a three-bay arcade that is unchamfered below for a screen, with only the crossing arch remaining open; the others are blocked by domestic apartments. The western bay still retains upper rooms, while other insertions have been removed, leaving evidence of joist recesses and windows.