Church of St Werburgh

Details

BRISTOL

ST6074 MINA ROAD, St Werburgh 901-1/37/1931 (East side) 08/01/59 Church of St Werburgh

GV II*

Church. Parts of tower 1758, the rest 1879 by John Bevan. Snecked limestone ashlar and tile roof. Aisled nave and chancel, W porch and SW tower. Perpendicular Gothic Revival style. Moulded plinths and sill drip course. Transomed 7-light E window and a crocketed hood, clasping buttresses with cornices and gargoyles and panelled gablet finials. The N aisle is 5 bays separated by buttresses; in the second bay from the W is a hooded door; parapet with blind traceried arcade. Lower single pitch vestry at the E end, gabled to the north with a 3-centred arched east doorway between small buttresses, rising through the eaves into a gable with a mullioned overlight, and drip course with lion-head gutterspouts. S aisle has a plain parapet, and a Lady Chapel with a crenellated parapet. 5-stage tower divided by drip moulds with a SW octagonal stair turret: S door with a wide 2-centred arch and paired colonnettes with round caps inside a moulded label, with quatrefoils and mouchettes in the spandrels; 3-light first-stage and 2-light second-stage windows; blind traceried 3rd- and 4th-stage belfry windows of 3 panels, louvred to the middle; open crenellated parapet with square corner pinnacles to the buttresses, and an octagonal top to the stair tower with open pyramidal top. The W porch has a shouldered gable with tracery panels below the apex. 4-light W window, gables with clasping buttresses and a pinnacle to the left one with tracery panels. INTERIOR: reredos with a central carved panel of the Last Supper with an openwork parapet, and 2 slate panels on either side; an arch of 2 orders to the S contains the organ loft, and the roof has timber tracery and a cornice with angels holding shields. Chancel arch with 3 attached shafts, and a 6-bay nave arcade on slender columns with attached shafts and foliate capitals, with a waggon roof on shield corbels; the arch-braced truss aisle roofs bear on similar corbels. The base of the tower has fan vaulting. FITTINGS: choir stalls with poppy heads; a large octagonal pulpit with panelled sides, and wrought-iron handrail; timber traceried screens below the tower and round the door. Corner vestry fireplace, a Tudor arch, panels above and a billeted top. MEMORIALS: various late C18 and C19 wall tablets, and a dresser tomb to John Barker, buried in the old Church of St Werburgh in 1607: a panelled base, Corinthian shafts and a plain entablature, with a recumbent figure lying on an elbow with a panel surrounded by scrolls. HISTORICAL NOTE: the medieval St Werburgh's, Corn Street was rebuilt by James Bridges in 1758, in a manner '...by eighteenth century standards notably conservative and cautious' (Gomme). Shown in Winstone, it was demolished in 1877, and Bevan re-used parts of it on the current site. (Bristol As It Was: 1879-1874: Bristol: 1965-: 30; Gomme A, Jenner M and Little B: Bristol, An Architectural History: Bristol: 1979-: 427).

Listing NGR: ST6005674914

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

380002

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Winstone, R, Bristol As It Was 1879-1874, (1965), 30
Gomme, A H, Jenner, M, Little, B D G, Bristol, An Architectural History, (1979), 427

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