Church Of St Michael

SEAVINGTON ST MICHAEL CP CHURCH LANE (East side) ST41SW 5/83 Church of St Michael 4.2.58

GV II*

Anglican parish church. Late C12, possibly refenestrated, porched c1291; C15 alterations, gallery of c1800, vestry 1858, reseating of 1899. Ham stone rubble, ashlar dressings; Welsh slate roof between stepped coped gables, with low parapet to nave. Two-cell plan of single-bay chancel, 3-bay nave, with north porch, south-east vestry and western bell turret. Chancel has no plinth, but clasping corner buttresses without offsets; 2-light east window, C14 tracery under pointed-arched plain-stopped label; north wall has 2-light flat-arched C15 windows, trefoil-cusped lights with incised spandrils, all set in hollow rectangular recess with deep square plain-stopped label; on south side the leanto vestry, with similar flat-arched window but not in a recess, in the east wall. Nave has corner buttresses to half-height, and added bay buttresses on south side to full height; centre bay on south side has a blocked chamfered pointed-arched doorway, with diamond-leaded window inserted with cill just below springing; on either side a 2-light C15 early Perpendicular traceried window, no recesses, plain-stepped labels; similar windows on north wall, but the north-east is 3-light with square-stop label; west window also 3-light C15, with pointed-arched square-stopped label, below being a small buttress and above a semi-circular arched plain window to serve the gallery. Crowning west wall is the bell turret; simple ashlar west gable with arched openings for 2 bells, and to east a Welsh slate-clad casing: until the 1770s a stone tower is mentioned, but in 1822 a wooden turret with 3 bells is described - either or both may refer to this structure. North porch has chamfered plinth, ball finial to north gable; 2-order moulded pointed outer arch and simple pointed inner arch; bench seats, segmental barrel vault ceiling. Interior mostly C19 reshaping: chancel very plain, with C19 scissor-truss roof; trefoil-cusped piscina in south wall of sanctuary; double-panelled chancel arch to almost full width. Nave has segmental plaster barel vault of 1825, with gallery at west end; another piscina, cinquefoil cusped, in south wall, and near chancel arch four later C14 corbel brackets for rood loft or lenten veil, two having carved heads. Choirstalls removed: fittings in chancel of C19 and C20; likewise in nave except for a circular tub font on rectangular base, probably C12/C13, with late C18 cover. Charles II hatchment over north door: in chancel the effigy of a man, c1280-90, possibly Adam le Denys, Lord of the Manor of Seavington St Denys, d.1284. Two fragments of early medieval glass in tracery of south-west nave window, and C18 glass panel in west window. First mention of church in 1226, first recorded rector 1297. (Pevsner N, Buildings of England, South and West Somerset, 1958; VCH, Vol III, 1974; Greenwood, C and J, Somerset Delineated, 1822).

Listing NGR: ST4101514951