Parish Church Of St Mary

Parish Church of St Mary

This parish church has Anglo-Saxon origins on an earlier British site and underwent substantial Norman remodelling, with further insertions of Decorated and Perpendicular style windows. The church consists of a long five-bay aisless nave, a two-bay north chapel (St Catherine's Chapel, now the Lady Chapel) added in 1298–9 by Thomas de Button, Bishop of Exeter, a taller two-bay chancel with priest's door, a west tower, and a vestry. The transept was removed in the 15th century. The building is constructed of rubble with ashlar dressings and modillions to the parapet, with a roof of later date. The church was substantially restored in the 19th century.

The blocked Norman south door features a continuous order and nook shafts, showing similarities to Keynsham Abbey across the river (founded circa 1170); the doorway was repaired in 1822. A small Norman doorway to the north of the tower, now in the vestry, displays an outer order of elaborated chevron forming lozenges and dogtooth (probably dating to the 1170s or 1180s), with a later moulded pointed arch inserted. The vestry is positioned in the angle between the tower and Lady Chapel.

The west tower is notable: a very good large three-stage structure with diagonal buttresses supporting pinnacles on set-offs. It has a later parapet with traceried and pinnacled crenellation, together with a spoiled capped stair turret to the north-west. The tower was constructed in the 1370s. The rather narrow west door has royal head stops to its label, with a large later Perpendicular window above. Paired windows to the belfry display Somerset tracery. A rood stair projection to the north carries memorial tablets, with rood loft windows to the south. The chancel dates to the late 14th century.

Internally, two sculpted feet above the chancel arch presumably indicate a colossal rood dating to circa 1000. A former porticus arch in the north wall indicates the width of the Anglo-Saxon church. The Saxon chancel arch is now masked by Norman chevron work installed in 1846 by Reverend H T Ellacombe. The Lady Chapel is accomplished Bristol work, featuring cusped rear arches, five-bay sedilia and piscina with crocketted labels, head-stops, cusped arches, and carved vaults behind. A printed west door with flanking cusp-headed windows and ball-flower stops is also evident. Stop fragments in the Lady Chapel include a carved hand of God, presumed to be from the rood, and two coffin tops—one bearing an effigy—from the chancel. Both the chancel and vestry have stone vaulted ceilings. The nave roof is of hammer-beam type, constructed in 1867 from cedar boards on oak salvaged from a wrecked ship, designed by H N Ellacombe, who also designed the pew ends.

A marble reredos by John Wood II dates to 1760. The church contains numerous memorials, including works in the chancel to John Burlie (died 1627), John Seymour (died 1663, with female supporters and weepers), and H T Ellacombe and his three wives (in Gothic style, presumably designed by him in the 1820s or 1830s, though he lived until 1885, with the inscription dated 1885). In the nave are memorials to Francis Stone (died 1641, dated 1659) and Stephen Roswell (died 1650). Two strapwork panels from Barrs Court are incorporated into the fabric, positioned beneath a stone memorial and above the entrance into the Lady Chapel.