Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin

An Anglican parish church of Isle Abbots, comprising work from the 13th, 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, with 19th-century restoration. The building is constructed of coursed and squared blue and white lias stone with Ham stone dressings, and features slate roofs with coped verges, finials, and stone ridge tiles to the chancel. The plan comprises a nave, chancel, north aisle, south porch, and west tower. The architectural style is predominantly Decorated and Perpendicular.

The outstanding four-stage tower is the most striking feature. It has an embattled parapet pierced by quatrefoils, with the crenellations themselves pierced by lancet openings. A stair-turret rises to the north, and very large corner pinnacles with attached secondary pinnacles are complemented by intermediate pinnacles to each side and gargoyles. Corner buttresses feature a shaft terminating at the bell-chamber stage as substantial pinnacles. The bell-chamber openings are paired, traceried, and quatrefoil-interlaced, with flanking pinnacles; the ringing-chamber stage has similar single-light openings. Crocketted niches on each face of the tower contain surviving medieval figures: the Risen Christ stepping from His sarcophagus, the Blessed Virgin with Christ Child, St Peter, and St Paul (west face); St George, St Catherine, and St Margaret (south); St John Baptist and St Clement (east); and St Michael (north).

The east elevation shows a 4-light transomed window with elaborate moulding and an elaborate moulded doorway. Inside the tower entrance are paired ribbed and studded plank doors with flanking canopied niches (the figures are missing).

The nave comprises three bays with a 3-light stepped lancet window and a 2-light foiled window to the south. The large south porch has pointed-arch inner and outer doorways of two simple chamfered orders, a pierced embattled parapet, gargoyles, and buttresses. The outer doors are good 17th-century examples with dog gates. The interior is benched on a flagstone floor and contains a foiled niche for a figure and slighted remains of a stoup. A fine fan-vault with a square central pendant covers the interior, and the inner door is ribbed and studded with scrolly iron strap hinges and an early lock.

The north aisle is of four bays dating to the 16th century, with a pierced-embattled parapet, gargoyles, pinnacles, and buttresses. It features 4-light windows with depressed-arch heads and rich tracery, and a narrow north doorway to the third bay from the east.

The two-bay chancel has triple-lancet windows with plate tracery, above which are 2 quatrefoils and a septfoil. A 16th or 17th-century two-light square-headed window has been added to the south. The broad east window is of five lights with simple stepped lancets. Large buttresses with stepped offsets support the chancel walls, and a rood-stair turret is present.

The plastered interior stands on flagstone floors, with two 17th-century memorials on the chancel floor. The nave has a ribbed keel-shaped roof with coloured bosses; the chancel has a wagon roof with exposed ribs. The aisle roof is panelled with carved bosses and a stout timber floor to the ringing chamber. The north arcade comprises four bays with piers of four-clustered shafts with continuous foliate capitals, and four-centred arches. A lofty panelled chancel arch rises above, and a fairly simple tower arch of two moulded orders provides access to the tower.

A moulded doorway leads to the tower stair-turret, which has a ribbed and studded door. A Norman font survives, comprising a square bowl on a large central shaft with four smaller flanking shafts; the bowl is carved with dragon figures and a dove, and features a Jacobean tester. Jacobean work also includes a tower screen with turned balusters and two chairs. A late 17th or early 18th-century pulpit is present. Upper and lower entrances to the former rood loft remain, with stairs, and a hagioscope is visible.

A 15th-century rood screen has square-headed panels with simple tracery and paired central doors; the cornice to the east survives, and much of the original painted decoration remains. Little carved figures against the wall plate over the roof-loft stairway are connected by fretwork indicating the width of the musicians' gallery. Notable 13th-century sedilia comprise three seats with cusped arches on slender columns and round-backed seats with arcading. The piscina is particularly noteworthy, featuring flanking arcading of blank niches. A Jacobean altar table stands adjacent to a medieval sarcophagus.

A set of 15th-century pews with carved traceried bench ends survives, along with a small medieval chest. A small cased 19th-century organ remains in the church. Fragments of royal arms under the tower and a brass memorial to the Fallen of the Great War are present. Fragments of medieval stained glass survive in the chancel, along with remains of small glazed tiles on the chancel floor, thought to originate from Muchelney Abbey.

Five bells hang in the tower: two are of pre-Reformation date, and three are 17th-century. One of the later bells was cast in Bristol and one in Taunton.