Church Of St Martin

ZEALS PORTNELL'S LANE ST 73 SE (north side) 6/201 Church of St Martin 6.1.66 GV II * Anglican parish church. 1842-46 by G.G. Scott, spire added 1876. Rockfaced limestone with ashlar dressings, tiled roof with bands of plain and beaver-tailed tiles. West tower with spire, nave, chancel with north vestry, south porch. Decorated style. Gabled south porch with moulded pointed chamfered doorway with attached shafts, diagonal buttresses and coped verge. South side of nave has one 2-light pointed window to left of porch, two 2-light pointed windows to right. Chancel has blind priest's doorway with 2-light pointed window either side, east end has diagonal buttresses and 3-light window, north side has 2-light window, vestry with pointed north doorway and pair of cusped ogee lancets, external stack, 2-light east and west windows. North side of nave has four 2-light windows, all windows with flowing tracery. Square 3-stage west tower has diagonal buttresses, string courses. 2- light west window, second stage has single-light leaded windows with cusped tracery and hoodmoulds, pinnacles to corners, offset octagonal bellstage with 2-light louvred windows, cornice with gargoyles to recessed spire with gableted windows and moulded finial. Polygonal stair turret with pointed doorway on south side. Interior: Porch has inner screen with double pointed doors, inner door to nave with double planked doors in pointed double chamfered archway. Nave has 4-bay hammer beam roof with stone corbels, arch- braced collar trusses to half-bays, tiled floors. Double chamfered tower arch with attached shafts, screen reset here from chancel arch. C14-style chancel arch with triple. moulded arch on compound pilasters. 1920s screen. Chancel has polychrome tiled floor, moulded pointed archway to organ chamber, chamfered pointed doorway to vestry to right, stone panelled reredos with carved vine frieze, trefoiled piscina on south wall. Other fittings; C19 pews and choir stalls, polygonal stone pulpit with traceried panels, octagonal stone carved font near south doorway. Monuments include stone gothic tablet in chancel to William Frederick Grove, founder of the church and school, died 1847, several brass plaques on nave walls, east window stained glass in memory of William Chafyn-Grove of Zeals House (q.v.). Church paid for by the Grove family of Zeals house, cost £2000, the builder was C. Kirk. A good early Scott interior. (N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, Wiltshire, 1975).

Listing NGR: ST7807831774