Church Of St Ethel Dreda

ST14SW WEST QUANTOXHEAD CP

5/218 Church of St. Ethel Dreda (previously listed as Etheldreda

22.5.69

GV II*

Parish Church. 1854-6. Architect John Morton for Sir Peregrine Acland and his son-in-law Sir Alexander Acland-Hood. Doulting stone, squared and coursed, Bath stone dressings, stone slates, coped verges, chamfered plinth. 4 bay nave, chancel and vestry, North and South aisles, Jorthwest tower, South porch. Late C13 Geometrical style. 3 stale tower, pierced parapet with initials and coats of arms of donors, angled buttresses, 2-light bell openings with quatrefoil Somerset tracery, clock second stage under ogee hood mould, 2-light window below, deeply moulded West entrance to tower, stair turret in North East corner with ashlar spirelet and weathervane. West front continued, gabled end of nave 4-light window, gabled end of South aisle 3-light; South front 2-light window left and two 2-light right of gabled and buttressed porch with 3 bay sedila-type arcades, double doors, decorative hinges; 3-light on East face of South aisle, two single light traceried windows to chancel, 3-light East end, 2-light to vestry; forth front, two single light tracered windows to vestry, three 2-light left between buttresses. All windows with hood moulds and carved foliage and faces to stops. Particularly noteworthy pair of gargoyles at junction of charcel and South aisle attributed to Farmer who did internal carving. Interior: arcades of Babbacombe marble piers, naturisticaily carved capitals, angel corbels carrying deep-arch braced scissor truss roof, one tier of cusping in nave, 2 tiers in chancel, aisles arch braced collar trusses with queen struts, Chancel tiled with coats of arms of doners. C12 font, good mid C19 brass lecturn. Unusually homogenous collection of average to good mid C19 fittings in contemporary interior distinguished by some fine stone carving. The medieval church, from which the font comes, was reputedly rebuilt circa 1583 and demolished by the Aclands when St. Audries (qv) park extended and the village resited, (Photograph in NMR VCH Somerset, Vol,S forthcoming; Pevsner, buildings of England, South and West Somerset, 1958).

Listing NGR: ST1132342006