Details
ST33SE
5/60
29.3.63
OTHERY CP
NORTH LANE (South side)
Church of St Michael
GV
I
Anglican parish church. C13, C14, C15, C16, extensively restored 1846-47 and later, some work by John Norton and Benjamin Ferrey. Coursed and squared rubble, freestone dressings, slate and stone tiled roofs, coped verges, finials.
Nave with south porch, crossing tower, north and south transepts, chancel with a C19 north vestry. Decorated and Perpendicular styles. Lofty 3-stage tower with big diagonal buttresses with offsets, embattled parapet, corner
pinnacles; polygonal stair turret to north-west corner, large finial with weathercock; bottom stage with 2-light windows to north and south; the next stage with a canopied niche on each face, figures of saints restored 1850; large
bell-chamber windows with 4-centred arch heads, 4-lights, transomed, tracery to heads as well as below the transom, majority of windows blank only the centre 2-lights with stone grilles. Tower supported on piers of c1300, broad mouldings, simple capitals, restored C19. Three bay buttressed nave, 2 and 3-light windows, 4-light west window with C19 memorial below; simple north and south doorways, to south good traceried door of C15, further traceried door to north. Porch rebuilt 1860, double chamfered outer door opening, inside tile floor and C19 carving of St Michael. Single bay north transept, much reconstructed, square head windows with labels, small blocked window set high up on north wall. South transept of single bay, 2 and 3-light neo-Decorated windows. Two bay chancel, 2-light square head windows adjacent to tower, to south lit through a pierced buttress; and Early English and Decorated windows, similar the east window; gargoyles. Interior plastered on tile and encaustic tile floors; C19 roofs, unceiled wagon roof to nave probably incorporates medieval work. C13 rere-arches to chancel. C13 piscina to chancel; C14 piscina in north aisle. Entrance to rood. Decorated font with a C18 cover. Set C15/C16 bench ends, poppy heads, representations of a saint,
pelican, tracery, and one with initials:- "R B" (of Robert Beere, Abbot of Glastonbury 1493-1524), some C19 restoration; some later pews including work by William Halliday of C19. Many good quality C19 fittings including stone
pulpit (1852), screen (1852), lectern (1847), carved angels under tower (1855), stained glass to north transept (1856), and qlass to east window (1857) by John Norton executed by Messrs Hardman. Encased C15 cope on south wall of nave with
the Virgin. South transept with fragments of medieval glass, pictures of St Augustine, St Gregory, and St Jerome, mid C15. Five bells, the earliest believed to be 1692; C19 wall monuments including one to Colonel John Rouse Merriott
Chard VC, a hero of Rorke's Drift; he lived at Pathe House (q.v) in the parish. Late \c19 organ, Although the church is much restored, the high quality of the remaining medieval work, especially the tower deserve the high grade. (Pevsner,
N. Buildings of England, South and West Somerset, 1958; SANHS 29, 53; Church Guide anon, undated; Photographs in NMR).
Listing NGR: ST3824831621
