Church Of St Mary The Virgin

The Church of St Mary the Virgin is a parish church located in Nether Stowey. The church features a 15th-century tower, while the rest of the building was rebuilt in 1851 by architects Richard Carver and Charles Edmund Giles, with the work carried out by W M Shewbrooks of Taunton. The structure is made from coursed and squared red sandstone rubble with freestone dressings, and it has slate and asbestos slate roofs with coped verges topped with cruciform finials. The architectural styles represented are Perpendicular and Decorated.

The church includes a nave with a south porch and north and south aisles, as well as a chancel that has a north vestry. The west tower is an embattled three-stage structure featuring diagonal buttresses, corner pinnacles, an embattled stair-turret, prominent gargoyles, and two-light bell-chamber windows. Inside, there is a four-bay nave with arcading and a two-bay chancel, both featuring two-light windows. The south aisle has a parapet and the east and west windows are three-light.

The interior is plastered, with an arch-braced roof in the nave and north aisle, a lean-to roof in the south aisle, and a plastered wagon roof in the chancel. Notable features include a restored octagonal font from the 15th century and two brackets in the chancel that display bishops' mitres, commemorating two vicars who became bishops, likely from the late 18th century. There is also a royal coat of arms dating to around 1710. The church contains four 18th-century tablets, one in the north aisle with a pediment, and six 19th-century tablets, including one near the south doorway dedicated to Thomas Poole from 1837. The church features much 19th-century stained glass, particularly the east window depicting the Ascension from 1886 by Ward and Hughes and the north aisle window showing the Good Samaritan from 1893. A tablet commemorating the rebuild is located adjacent to the tower arch.