Church Of The Blessed Virgin Mary

This parish church contains a 14th-century font and possibly some contemporary fabric in the chancel. The tower and north aisle date from the 15th century, while the chancel includes some late 15th to early 16th-century detail. The chancel and roofs were restored around 1840 with new benches and fittings. A major renovation of the nave and rebuilding of the porch took place in 1896–7 by E H Harbottle, and the tower was restored in 1924 by Harbottle-Reed.

Construction and Materials

The nave, chancel and aisle are built of random local stone rubble. The aisle has large dressed quoins of red conglomerate stone and cream sandstone. The tower is constructed of red conglomerate rubble laid to courses with dressed quoins of red conglomerate stone and Beer stone. Parts of the tower and chancel are roughcast. Original detail and tower restoration detail are in Beer stone, while other restoration detail uses Bath stone. The roofs are slate, and the nave has crested ridge tiles.

Overall Form

The chancel may contain some 14th-century fabric but none is evident. The nave is slightly wider and taller. The south wall appears to have been rebuilt in the 19th century along with the south porch. The north aisle and west tower are largely original. The tower is unusual in having opposing north and south doorways—apparently this was needed to provide a through route since the west end was formerly on the churchyard boundary. The architectural style is Perpendicular throughout.

The Tower

The tall west tower has two stages with low diagonal buttresses and an embattled parapet. A semi-octagonal stair turret with tiny plain slit windows rises above the main tower with its own embattled parapet. Carved Beer stone gargoyle water spouts survive on three corners. The arch-headed two-light belfry windows with cusped tracery are mostly replacements, although the eastern one may be original. On the north side is a small trefoil-headed lancet to the ringing loft, and on the south side is another larger example with its original trefoil head, sunken spandrels and square-headed hood. The west side has a three-light window with Perpendicular tracery that is mostly replacement work.

The north and south doorways are original, with two-centred arches, richly-moulded surrounds and hoodmoulds. The south door is a studded plank door with moulded cover strips and large plain strap hinges—it may be 17th or 18th century. The north door is hidden by a 20th-century tool-shed.

South Side of Nave

Most of the south side of the nave was probably rebuilt in the 19th century, although the large dressed quoins at the left end and the projecting rood stair turret at the right end are probably 15th-century work. The three windows are all 19th-century Bath stone two-lights with ogee heads, Perpendicular-style tracery and moulded hoods. The south porch, left of centre, is also 19th century but reuses some medieval material. It is gabled with a Bath stone apex block bearing the initials BVM (twice) and AE. The kneelers and some of the coping have been replaced with 20th-century concrete. The outer arch has reused moulded jambs of volcanic stone but the two-centred arch is 19th century. The east wall includes a reset Beer stone lancet. The rood turret projects square and contains a tiny round-headed lancet made from a single block of stone.

Chancel

The south side of the chancel is roughcast and contains a narrow priest's door with a two-centred head that was repaired in the 19th century. To the left is an early 16th-century Beer stone square-headed two-light window. The cinquefoil heads and hoodmould have also been repaired in the 19th century. To the right is another similar window but this is entirely 19th century and in Bath stone. The east end has 19th-century corner diagonal buttresses of red conglomerate ashlar, contemporary Bath stone kneelers, coping and apex Latin cross, and a Bath stone three-light window with Perpendicular tracery, moulded hood and large carved oak-leaf labels.

North Aisle

The north aisle appears to have very little restoration. The walls are random rubble with large dressed quoins. All the windows are Beer stone, three lights with Perpendicular tracery. There are three on the north side with restored buttresses between, and one more at each end.

Interior

The porch has a cobbled floor and a 19th-century roof. The south door is restored 15th-century work of Beer stone and red sandstone—a flat arch with chamfered surround. The door is probably 17th century: a plank door with scratch-moulded cover strips, original ferramenta including plain strap hinges and a large oak lock housing.

Both nave and aisle have plain ceiled barrel-vaulted roofs with 19th-century wall plates. There is no chancel arch. A 19th-century arch-braced truss drops the roof line to the chancel. Here is a ceiled wagon roof of two main bays, each sub-divided into a series of square panels with carved oak or moulded plaster bosses and a delicate open crestwork wall plate. Because the roof is painted it is impossible to see if any medieval carpentry survives. The tower interior was inaccessible at the time of survey.

The tall tower arch has a double-chamfered arch ring dying into the plain sides. There is a three-bay Beer stone arcade between nave and aisle. The piers are moulded (Pevsner's type B) with carved foliate capitals, and the cap of the eastern respond includes an angel holding a shield. There is a fourth arch through the thicker wall between the chancel and eastern end of the aisle. The arch is lined with Beer stone ashlar and has two sets of trefoil-headed panels separated and flanked by half-engaged columns with plain caps. The west side is mutilated by a squint cut through from a now-disused rood stair rising in the thickness of the chancel wall from the aisle, where there is a Beer stone segmental-headed doorway with a rebated surround and carved foliage in the spandrels. The south nave has a plain flat arched doorway to the disused rood stair there. The north aisle has hollow-chamfered Beer stone rear arches to the windows; elsewhere they are Bath stone. The flag floor includes some 17th and 18th-century grave slabs but most are fragmentary.

Fittings and Furnishings

The 19th-century oak reredos and altar are both carved in Gothic style. To the right, the original piscina has been given a 19th-century Beer stone surround with cusped ogee arch and poppyhead finial. Other 19th-century fittings include an oak altar rail, Gothic style softwood stalls with poppyhead finials, a plain lectern and plain deal benches. The pulpit is a 19th-century refurbishment of an 18th-century octagonal drum pulpit with fielded panel sides and the front panel enriched with an inlaid marquetry sunburst.

The 14th-century Beer stone font is of high quality, with an octagonal bowl featuring panelled quatrefoils on the sides and carved foliage around the base, an octagonal stem and hollow-chamfered base. It has a 17th-century oak font cover with a broken ogee profile. At the rear of the aisle is a good 17th-century oak chest with a panelled front richly decorated with chip-carving and inscribed with the initials MW.

Monuments and Glass

The mural monuments are all late 18th and 19th century. The grandest, to the south of the chancel, is in memory of Edward Lloyd Kenyon (died 1843) and comprises a Tudor Gothic style Beer stone frame and large white marble panel carved in bas relief showing a mother and daughter weeping over the inscribed grave. It is signed E B Stephens Sc., Upper Belgrave Place, London. Plain plaques nearby commemorate the Carwithen family (around 1905) and the Marker family (around 1812 and around 1865). On the north side is another marble monument with a Beer stone Tudor Gothic style frame in memory of Henry and Margaretta Marker (died 1811 and 1846). It is flanked by early 20th-century memorials to the Bruton family, both white marble with alabaster frames and similar to the First World War memorial in the nave and the Ruth Loram memorial in the aisle (died 1919). Other marble plaques commemorate the Stoke family of Minchen Court (1771–1789), Henry and Mary Pitt (both died 1849), Hugh Bennet of Rosamondford (died 1797), and Samuel and Sarah Walker (1834–1830).

Some of the glass in the north aisle windows may be 18th century and some fragments of coloured glass in the tracery may be earlier. There is good 19th-century stained glass in the east window and two late 19th-century stained and hammered glass windows on the south side.

Summary

The font is the only feature earlier than the 15th century. The tower is the best feature of an otherwise unremarkable Perpendicular church which was heavily restored in the 19th century.