Church Of The Holy Trinity

Church of the Holy Trinity

This is an Anglican parish church at South Cadbury, Sutton Montis, with Saxon origins and surviving work from the 12th century and all subsequent periods. It stands on the west side of Church Hill.

The church is built of roughly cut and squared Cary stone with Doulting stone dressings. It follows a two-cell plan with a 2-bay chancel and 3-bay nave, a low west tower, and a north-west vestry. The chancel roof has plain clay tiles with bands of fish-scale tiles, while the nave has stone slates; both are finished between stepped coped gables.

The chancel dates to the 12th century and late 13th century, and was restored in 1862. It has a chamfered plinth, pairs of corner and bay buttresses with offset, and headstop kneeler stones to the gable coping. The east window is a 3-light window with Geometric tracery under an arched label with headstops. Below and to the sides are three 18th-century memorial plaques in keystoned architraved surrounds to members of the Barton family, who provided rectors from 1573 to 1878 without a break. Extending from the east buttresses is a railed area with 18th-century wrought iron railings having spear-point tips and three cast-iron finials. On the north side is a 2-light window of the 13th century with post-plate tracery under an arched label with headstops, and a wall lean-to vestry with a dated quoinstone of 1847 and an east window matching the north chancel window. On the south side are two similar windows with indications of a blocked doorway beneath the westernmost. A sundial is set on the central buttress.

The nave was largely rebuilt in 1805. It has buttresses with offsets at each end. On the south side are two 3-light windows; to the left of the portico is a plain triple lancet, and to the right are three ogee-arched lights with carved spandrels, both without labels. The portico, presumably of 1805, has Tuscan columns and pilasters on cube block bases carrying a full plain entablature with pediment and pitched lead-covered roof. The doorway is plain with a Gothic style door installed to commemorate Queen Victoria's Diamond Jubilee in 1897. The north side has two Y-tracery windows without labels, with a lean-to 20th-century heating chamber below.

The tower is low and squat with 12th-century origins, restored in 1904. It consists of one stage only, with a chamfered plinth, no buttress, and a simple upper string course below a castellated parapet with corner obelisk pinnacles in 18th-century style. The west door is moulded with a pointed arch and no label. Above it is a 3-light window of the 15th century with tracery of irregular geometry set in a hollow-chamfered recess. Above this is a pair of slim lancet windows without label, matched by similar pairs on the north and south sides (the latter off-centre), and on the east side are simple lancets to either side of the pitched roof. The south-east corner has a square-plan stair turret with a lean-to stone roof and slit windows on the east side.

Internally, the work spans a variety of periods. The chancel is 13th-century in character, with a ribbed roof and arch into an organ chamber vestry. The windows have fully-moulded rere-arches with attached bell-cap shafts and arched labels on bell-capital corbels. There is a partly restored 13th-century piscina in the south-east corner. The chancel arch is of the early 12th century, with a quintuple chevron mould under a shaved-off label, plain chamfered impost blocks, and on the nave side attached shafts—one with a fluted cap, the other with acanthus-type foliage. To the south of the arch is a large squint. The roof has a moulded timber rib and plaster panel ceiling with decorative bosses, possibly of 1805. A plain pointed arch with chamfered impost blocks leads into the tower, dating to the late 12th or early 13th century.

The fittings in the chancel are 19th-century, and nave pews were installed in 1912. There is a fine early 17th-century timber pulpit with matching panelling under an 18th-century tester, all relocated from the other side of the chancel arch. The font is 15th-century, octagonal with quatrefoil panels, a moulded waterbowl, and a panelled shaft.

Memorials include an engraved brass in the chancel to Jacobi Dupont, Lord of the Manor, who died in 1590. In the nave, on the north wall, is a tablet in an architraved surround with a semi-circular panel over to Ann Dymock, who died in 1735, and a hatchment board dated 1805. Fragments of early medieval stained glass remain in the west window. Photographs of the church before 1912 show the original site of the pulpit, sexton's desk, and west-end gallery, also featured in a cartoon of the church choir or band dated 1827. The tower contains three bells dated 1764, 1420 (Bristol), and 1636.

The church is one of the few in this area not reconstructed in the 14th or 15th century.