Church Of St Mary

Church of St Mary, Walton

This church comprises a late medieval tower base with the remainder rebuilt in 1869-70 by John Norton. The building is constructed of local red sandstone with clay-tiled roofs.

The plan includes a west tower, nave built on medieval foundations, a three-bay north aisle, chancel, vestries, and north porch.

The exterior displays Somerset Perpendicular style for the tower, nave, and aisle, while the chancel is in Early English style, reflecting the 13th century foundation date despite the absence of medieval chancel remains. Norton added two upper stages to the medieval tower base, incorporating two-light bell openings with Somerset tracery, pierced panelled battlements, and a tall Bristol spirelet above the stair turret. The tower west window retains fragments of early 14th century Decorated tracery, though Norton substituted Perpendicular tracery and replaced the original Decorated arch with a square-hooded doorway. The tower has diagonal buttresses. The nave and north aisle contain windows with varied two-light tracery. The north porch features an ogee outer arch with crocketed mouldings and a statuary niche above. A low vestry is attached east of the aisle. The east window displays Early English style stepped triple lancets framed by a broad blind arch.

Internally, the tower arch retains 14th century wave mouldings. The three-bay nave arcade features typical Somerset Perpendicular piers with four shafts and four hollows. The north aisle is almost as wide as the nave. Open timber roofs with small hammerbeams and angel terminals span both spaces. A small 15th century trefoil-headed niche or piscina from the former church survives south of the chancel arch. The long chancel is divided from the nave by a low screen wall and has a moulded chancel arch with multiple shafts. The east window features Purbeck marble shafts and the roof is a ribbed wagon roof painted with angels.

Principal fixtures include a timber reredos from around 1870, painted and gilded with a many-gabled top and figures of the Evangelists. Painted worshipping angels by Reverend R. Hautenville, the Rector in 1870, appear on the east wall. The rood beam with Calvary group was designed by Bristol architect Percy Hartland Thomas and executed by Herbert Read in 1948. Fine wrought-iron chancel gates date from 1870. An angular pulpit is corbelled off the wall north of the chancel arch. A Purbeck marble font from 1879 features trefoil panelled sides. The church contains good colourful Victorian stained glass: the east window incorporates a French medieval king figure at the top centre; the south nave wall contains windows by Heaton & Butler (circa 1873, with medieval fragments), Gibbs, and Ward & Hughes (circa 1905); the north aisle east window is by Heaton & Butler (circa 1873), with further Heaton & Butler work nearby dating to circa 1877; a Jones & Willis window dates from circa 1916; and the north aisle west window contains two 16th century Flemish figures. Additional medieval glass fragments, some French or Flemish, appear in the top lights of various windows and in the vestries.

Subsidiary features include a good canopied churchyard gate in oak from 1927-8, designed by Bristol architect C.F.W. Dening. A new entrance with church hall to the west, by David Appleby (1969-70), adjoins the west face of the tower but is excluded from this listing.

The original medieval church of St Paul was founded in the 13th century with a tower added or recast in the 14th century. It fell into disuse after the Reformation for uncertain reasons and became ruinous; by the late 18th century only the tower base remained standing. Though it continued as the parish church of Walton-in-Gordano, approximately 1¼ miles north-east, until 1838 when a new church was provided there, the ruined St Paul was rebuilt with a new dedication in 1869-70 by John Norton at the instigation of Reverend Rawdon Hautenville. The rebuilt church served the fashionable cliff-top villas around Bay Road, built from circa 1860 as an adjunct to Clevedon, which had been successfully developed as a seaside resort from 1821 by the Eltons of Clevedon Court. St Mary was consecrated on 5 November 1870. In the early 1980s, St Mary's became part of the United Benefice of East Clevedon.

John Norton (1823-1904) was born in Bristol, articled to Benjamin Ferrey, and established practice in London while maintaining offices in Bristol. He undertook extensive church building and restoration in Bristol and Somerset, particularly in the 1860s, often favouring 13th century Gothic style but equally capable of executing Somerset Perpendicular work as here. He is best known for the complete rebuilding of Tyntesfield house, Wraxall (1863-5), approximately 6 miles east of Clevedon.