Church of St George

CHURCH OF ST GEORGE

Parish church of Norman origin with later medieval developments. The building comprises a west tower, four-bay nave, two-and-a-half-bay south chapel, south porch, and chancel.

The Norman core was extended with a south chapel in the 14th-15th centuries. The windows were refenestrated in the late 15th century. The tower was begun in the 1530s, with its upper stages completed in 1549. The church underwent restoration and reseating in 1866.

The exterior is constructed of roughcast over rubble with Ham stone dressings. The tower, which is the building's dominant feature, is built of squared and coursed blue lias. It rises in four unfinished stages without crenellations or parapet. Pinnacles rest on setback buttresses, and the tower is decorated with gargoyles and friezes of quatrefoil ornament. The bell openings are 2-light windows with Somerset tracery. Below these is a 2-light window flanked by empty canopied niches with angle corbels. The west face displays a 4-light window with continuous hood mould set on a quatrefoil-decorated frieze, and a 4-centred arch west door with hood mould featuring angle terminals and decorated spandrels. The 19th-century double doors and a clock on the south face are later additions. The north-east corner contains an unfinished stair turret.

The south front features a single-storey gabled porch of dressed Ham stone with a moulded arch opening. Above it is a sundial. The porch interior contains a 16th-century ribbed ceiled barrel vault supported by a Norman scalloped capital resting on a plinth with entablature. To the left of the porch is a recessed 4-centred arch doorway with a beaded, scalloped capital on the right side only.

The south chapel projects from the south wall, with a reset carved saint on the arris corner. Below the parapet are gargoyles set above 20th-century stepped buttresses flanking two 2-light windows. An early 19th-century lias tablet to the Bennett family is positioned on the south chapel wall. The chapel has a 3-light east window and a 2-light north window. A doorway leads to the rood stair, which projects from the building and contains a tiny 2-light window. The south chapel has a parapet to its slate roof with coped verges and random rubble construction.

The north wall of the nave contains two 2-light windows, supported by two large and two small buttresses in the centre. The chancel has a 2-light window and is accessed via a doorway from the south chapel. The exterior walls are rendered throughout.

Interior

The interior walls are rendered. The tower arch is Perpendicular in style with panelled jambs and features a moulded 4-panel compartment ceiling. A 2-light unglazed squint window in the chancel wall provides a view from the chapel into the chancel, with a doorway giving access from chapel to chancel.

The chapel features a two-bay Perpendicular arcade, with the eastern arch springing from the chancel wall. Stone winder stairs to the rood loft cut across the jambs of the chancel window.

The chancel is fitted with an early 16th-century ceiled wagon roof. The chapel roof is plastered, and the nave also has a ceiled wagon roof.

A fine carved and gilded Stuart royal coat of arms is displayed in the church. The font is an extravagant late Perpendicular example, featuring four square decorated shafts carrying an octagonal panelled bowl on a fan vaulting pier, with crockets and quatrefoil decoration.

18th-century furnishings include panelled dado and turned baluster altar rails. An early 19th-century stone altar in the chapel is octagonal, decorated with part fluted Doric columns. A pulpit dating to around 1920 was presented as a thanksgiving offering for the preservation of the three sons of the Somerville family of Ruishton House during the First World War.

The church retains some medieval stained glass in the rood stair window, with much unsigned 19th-century glass elsewhere.

Memorials

The church contains a notable collection of memorials. A slate and marble wall tablet to John Arundel, died 1784, features a sorrowing figure by an urn in a roundel, signed by Drewett of Bristol. A wall tablet to Charles Proctor Anderdon, died 1824, is signed by T King of Bath and depicts a sorrowing figure by a broken column. A slate memorial to Jane Kimberly, died 1808, is signed by M Long of Taunton. A tablet of painted Ham stone commemorates James Bond and Mathew Bond, died 1750 and 1756 respectively. A small brass honours Edith Strong, died 1769. Additional 18th-century slate and marble tablets to the Proctor and Anderdon families complete the collection.