Details
ST52SE WEST CAMEL CP
4/136 Church of All Saints
19.4.61
GV I
Church. Late C14 with earlier fragments. Local stone, random coursed,
Ham stone dressings; mostly lead roofs, but plain clay tiles to chancel
and stone slates to North transept; coped gables with finials; lead
covered spirelet. Cruciform plan with 2-bay chancel and 3-bay nave, with
tower instead of a South transept. Chancel has slight plinth and angled
corner buttresses; East window has reticulated tracery, the North and
South windows are 2-light cusped lancets with Quatrefoil over, with
arched hoods and relieving arches; small simple door and squint on South
side. North transept has part buttresses to corners and centre of North
wall; Eastern 3-light window in 4-centre arch with C15 tracery and in
North wall very small 2-light window with C15 tracery very rural in
character. Nave has bay buttresses of 3 different heights; a wide
2-centre arched 3-light window with C15 tracery set in a recess on the
North side, a cusped lancet and Quatrefoil and a large 3-light window
with wide pointed arch and C15 tracery on the South; the West window a
simple 3-light window of C15 with head bosses in the pointed label,
there being a simple segmental arched doorway under. The South porch of
C19, projecting a plain segmental arched doorway into the church.
Crenellated parapet to South side of nave; to North a low parapet with
bases for pinnacle finials. Tower simple, bulging towards base, in 3
stages denoted by slit windows on the South side and a string course
below bellchamber; corbel table to low parapet with gargoyles; lead
sheathed spirelet with weathervane; bellchamber windows on all 4 sides
with C13 tracery and wood baffles. Internally the chancel has a C19 arch
and arched rib ceiling to collar trussed rafters, the East window set in
a depressed trefoil rere-arch, flanked by 2 lancet niches and with stone
apron panel - possibly parts of an early reredos; sedelia and 2
piscinae, one each side, of C13; long squint from North transept. North
Transept arch of 2-orders has corbel shaft to bell capitals; timber
ribbed and bossed segmental barrel vault ceiling. South transept arch of
2-orders with no capitals, the mouldings carried down the jambs. Nave
roof a 5-bay medieval king-post truss with tracery infill panels, having
heavily moulded beams and principal rafters and bold Tudor rose central
bosses, elaborate wall plate and angel brackets at each mid-bay, all
with modern gold leaf and colouring. Fittings include a curved pulpit
front in C13 style, shown in different position in a pre-restoration
sketch of the church; a circular lead-lined font, probably C12, with
intersecting arch decoration, on modern base; and in the North transept
two C14 bench ends; 2 chests, one possibly C15 and the other C17; and
set into middle of floor fragment of a C9 Saxon cross-shaft with
cable-roll interlaced decoration on 2 faces, discovered above nave East
wall foundations in 1866. In tower 5 bells, the earliest of C15.
Monuments include: pedimented plaque, Revd. M. Hill, died 1744; a brass
tablet to Revd. J. Hinkesman, died 1746; plaque with draped urn, E.
Aubrery, died 1786, by T. King of Bath; marble plaque with urn, Crowbrow
family, died from 1796, by Fishers of York. Little known of early
history; few certain dates, including addition of spirelet in 1631,
rebuilding of chancel arch 1847, and some restoration for Revd. W.L.
Metcalf by Ewan Christian in 1866; a church of much interest and
variety, albeit sole being of rather rural character. (Pooley, Old
Crosses of Somerset, 1877; SANHS proceedings, Volumes 36, 59 and 105).
Listing NGR: ST5802824625
