Church Of St George

ST04SE SAMPFORD BRETT CP

2/125 Church of St George

22.5.69

• II*

Parish church. Circa 1300. North transept, tower late C14 - early C15, 1835-43 chancel, vestry and West end of nave rebuilt, West porch and organ chamber added, restored 1960-2 after World War 2 damage, West windows rebuilt 1967. Roughcast tower with exposed quoins, North front buttresses, but not lower courses, West end; vestry and South side of chancel squared and coursed and random rubble red sandstone, coped verges, gabled parapet to West end with kneelers, slate roofs. Plan: chancel, South vestry, unlit 3 bay nave, North transept chapel, South organ chamber, South West tower, West porch. 2 stage crenellated tower, unbuttressed, 2-light louvred bell opening, C20 clock, south door double chamfered arch dying into the imposts with C19 double doors. To right, 2-light window and 4-centred arch door to organ chamber, lancet to vestry, stepped buttresses, lancet to chancel, 4-light East window, set back buttresses to chancel, 2 lancets between buttresses on North side, angled projection at junction with nave (similar on South side masked externally by vestry), 2-light windows East and North fronts of chapel, lancet West front, set back buttresses, North wall of nave unlit but blocked arched doorway, West end tall lancets flanking 3-light window with continuous hoodmould, tall stepped buttresses, single storey porch below with gabled pediment, C19 4-centred moulded doorway with ribbed door, similar inner door. Interior: rendered, grooved as ashlar in nave. Nave, 2 bays unlit. The main feature of the church is the light-hearted plasterwork foliage decoration in the chancel of circa 1835 with slender colonettes flanking openings, foliage wall plate and plasterwork angel bosses to the ribbed vaulted roof. C19 ribbed barrel vault to North chapel, nave roof C15 ribbed and plastered wagon roof with bosses. Octagonal font with trefoil headed cusping, base day be an inverted medieval bowl; C17 communion table used as side altar; bench ends of early C16 and early C17 reset C19; hatchment in North transept chapel which used to contain an effigy of a late C13 cross legged knight, thought to be Sir William Brett died 1295, now in vestry; slate and marble wall tablet to Zacharias Wyndam died 1627 set above entrance to vestry; small amount of armorial glass dated 1743 belonging to another Wyndam, set in West window. (Photographs in NMR; VCH Somerset, Vol 5, forthcoming; Collins D, The Village and Church of St George, Sampford Brett, 1982).

Listing NGR: ST0894840199