Church Of St Mary The Virgin

Church of St Mary the Virgin, Chard

This parish church has late 11th and early 12th-century origins but was substantially rebuilt in the 15th century, with an early 17th-century clerestorey added later. The vestry was built and the church underwent restoration in 1882. The building is constructed of squared and coursed flint, rough limestone ashlar, and some coursed rubble, with lead roofs.

The church follows a cruciform plan with an aisled nave, north and south porches, and a west tower. The architectural style is Perpendicular.

The exterior features setback and offset corner buttresses topped with crocketed finials, and gargoyles adorn most buttresses and the spaces between corner buttresses. A moulded plinth and cornicing run around the building, while the walls are finished with battlemented ashlar parapets, except for the plainer coped parapet to the chancel and north transept. The east window is a five-light example with figure stops to the hoodmould, while the north and south chancel windows have three lights each. The north chapel contains three-light windows and a stair turret at its north-east angle. The south chapel is distinguished by two three-light east windows, a four-light south window with ogee heads above a moulded pointed-arched doorway with foliate spandrels and label mould, and a three-light west window with ogee heads and head stops to the hoodmould. The six-bay nave is lit by three-light windows and early 17th-century clerestorey dormers containing moulded mullioned three-light windows topped with obelisks. The north porch features a crocketed ogee hoodmould with head stops above a pointed moulded arch with two orders of perpendicular capitals, a canopied niche flanked by 1882 relief panels of angels, and a moulded pointed arch to the inner door of 1882. The south porch is similar but plainer in detail. The three-stage tower has moulded string courses and a north-west angle stair turret. A hoodmould crowns the pointed moulded west doorway (fitted with early 19th-century panelled doors) and continues over a three-light west window (restored in the mid-20th century). The upper stage carries hoodmoulds over two-light windows with trefoil heads and Somerset tracery.

Interior features include a fragment of a late 11th or early 12th-century round-headed arch in the south chancel wall and a formerly canopied niche to the south-east of the chancel. The late 19th century saw the addition of canopied niches to the east wall. Pointed moulded arches open into the north and south chapels and to the tall chancel arch; the south arch has trefoil panelling to its intrados, while others carry Perpendicular capitals to their shafts. Both chapels retain former canopied niches, with the north chapel example retaining original paintwork. The nave arcades feature pointed moulded arches and Perpendicular capitals to the shafts of quatrefoil piers. Similar arches lead from the north aisle to its chapel and from the south aisle to its chapel, the latter displaying trefoil panelled intrados. A tall west arch also spans the nave.

The roofs display considerable craftsmanship. The 15th-century nave has a coffered wagon roof with a coved stone cornice decorated with floral and foliated bosses. The chapels and aisles feature moulded beams with bosses to coffered ceilings; the north aisle ceiling is particularly fine, its bosses supported by angel corbels, while the south aisle ceiling is simpler, lacking bosses. The early 17th-century nave roof is a coffered design of light scantling, crowned with a coved plaster cornice ornamented with rose and floral bosses.

Fittings include a 15th-century octagonal font with quatrefoil panels and a restored cover, an 1880 pulpit, and a late 19th-century brass eagle lectern. Two early 17th-century parish chests survive in the church. The memorials are notable, particularly a monument in the north chapel to William Brewer, a physician who died in 1614. This fine work displays inscription panels between consoles supporting figures of William and his wife, flanked by their kneeling sons and daughters at prayer, all set within a Corinthian aedicule. The composition is crowned by a heraldic achievement set in a broken segmental pediment, surmounted by classical female figures and flanking obelisks.