Church In The Field

An Anglican parish church, formerly the private chapel to the manor. Situated on the site of an earlier church, it was started in the early 17th century, damaged during the English Civil War, and completed in 1690. Built from local lias stone, cut and squared, with Ham stone dressings and Welsh slate roofs with coped gables behind castellated parapets, the building is designed in a Gothic survival style.

The church comprises a four-unit plan consisting of a 2-bay chancel, 3-bay nave, north and south aisles, and a west tower. The chancel features a plinth, cill and eaves courses, and a crenellated parapet with corner gargoyles. The angled corner buttresses are of nearly full height. The east window contains three lights in a hollowed, almost semi-circular arched recess with a stilted headstop label. The lights are cinquefoil cusped below elaborate circular and stellar tracery. Both north and south walls contain 2-light windows in pointed-arched hollowed recesses without labels, with 'Y' traceried lights and reversed 'V' subtracery. In the north-west corner is a moulded, cambered arched doorway with a 3-panel plank and covermould door featuring a carved toprail incorporating the arms and initials of George Stawel, who completed the church.

The nave features an elaborate clerestorey with lead stackheads on each side. Its 3-light, cinquefoil cusped windows are set in hollowed pointed-arched recesses, with quasi-gothic tracery of three quatrefoils with added cusping and a battlemented parapet above. The aisles match in detail, with plinth, cill and eaves courses and crenellated parapets supported by bay buttresses. Single-light windows matching the chancel side window details appear in the east walls and the west wall of the north aisle. The side walls of the aisles contain 3-light, cinquefoil cusped windows with almost reticulated tracery in almost semi-circular arched hollowed recesses.

The west tower rises in three stages. It has a plinth, offset string courses, an eaves course with gargoyles and a low crenellated parapet. Half-height angled corner buttresses mark the west face, and a half-height, square-plan stair turret occupies the south-east corner, topped with a monopitch tarred stone roof. The first stage has plain sides but features a west door with a triangular head set in a flat-arched hollowed surround with carved spandrels, framing a 4-panel door with a carved sunburst overthrow and 17th-century hinges. Above this is a 3-light window with 'correct' 15th-century tracery, possibly reused. The second stage has single-light, trefoil cusped windows in rectangular chamfered recesses on three sides, with the west example masked by a clockface. The third stage displays 2-light 15th-century style traceried windows in stilted pointed arched recesses on all faces.

The interior chancel is largely 19th-century, featuring an arch-braced collar truss roof and 19th-century side panelling, though it retains a 17th-century reredos and panelling to the east wall. A 17th-century altar table and two 17th-century benches remain. The chancel arch is a double unpanelled structure in 15th-century style, with a fine 17th-century screen that appears to incorporate 15th-century fragments. The nave has a 19th-century arch-braced collar truss roof, 15th-century style arcades, original stone flag floors, and 17th-century fittings including a fine pulpit (originally from SS Peter and Paul, Muchelney), a reading desk, and box-type pews without doors. The aisles contain matching pews and lean-to roofs, mostly 19th-century but with earlier fragments.

Beneath the tower stands a 19th-century octagonal font and a 17th-century chest. An elaborate stone and glazed screen with double doors, dating to around 1800, was removed from his private chapel in Bristol by a former Mayor of Bristol, Sir Charles Wathen, also Lord of the Manor. A stone version of the Royal arms appears in the east wall of the north aisle. Beneath it is a monument to Sir Edward Hext, died 1624, with effigies of him and his wife, enclosed by wrought iron railings. The east wall of the south aisle bears a marble monument to Ralph Stawell, died 1681, featuring a curtained plaque on an elaborate plinth with flanking cherubs, Corinthian columns to the sides carrying a segmental pediment with a cartouche of arms, all enclosed by 17th-century railings, some twisted with a variety of spearheads. The chancel contains much 17th-century stained glass, including the entire east window. Two medieval bells hang in the tower: one dating to around 1500, the other no later than 1350.

Until 1921, this church served as the private chapel of the Lord of the Manor. The manor house was demolished in the late 17th century and a sumptuous new manor was begun to the south of the church, but it was never finished and was eventually demolished.