Details
ST4619 MARTOCK CP
CHURCH STREET (West side)
9/207 Church of All Saints
19.4.61
GV I
Parish Church. C13 and C16, restored by Ferrey and Scott 1860 onwards, also 1883/4 by Ewan Christian. Ham stone ashlar; sheet lead roofs behind parapets. Seven-cell plan: 4-bay chancel, 6-bay nave, 5-bay north and south aisles, 2-bay choir chapels and south porch, west tower. Chancel: double plinth, cill strings, eaves course, bay and paired corner buttresses: east wall rebuilt 1883, has C13 5-lancet window with small gable lancet over; north and south walls have 2 C15 3-light windows in recesses, with small round-arched doorway, up steps. North-east chapel to match, but with castellated parapets; C15 traceried windows in hollow chamfered recesses, a 5-light in east wall, and 2 sub-arcuated 4-light windows in north wall; in north west corner an octagonal stair turret. North aisle, no plinth to wide east bay (former transept), then double plinth, bay buttresses, string course with gargoyles and plain parapet: 4-light sub-arcuated C16 traceried windows: C19 projection bay 4 set lower but matching; segmental arched east doorway and 2-light segmental-arched north window to gable and under stilted label; 4-light west window to aisle. South-east chapel has double plinth, cill and head string with gargoyles, battlemented parapet with crocketted pinnacles over bay buttresses; C16 tranceried windows, 5-light east window and 4- light sub-arcuated south windows. South aisle to match, but pinnacles missing; windows as north aisle. South porch 2 storey: angled corner buttresses, battlemented parapets and gable; C16 moulded outer arch, with ogee-cusped recess above under unstopped ogee label, then small 2-light window, probably C19; small cusped ogee-arched light in east wall: circular stair turret to north-west corner: inside porch a lierne vault roof with bosses, matching inner doorway. Nave: with C16 clerestorey; battlemented parapet with pierced quatrefoil panels; C15 sub-arcuated 4-light windows; lead stackheads. Tower: 4 stages, replacing one over central crossing: offset corner buttresses to full height, double plinth, strinq courses with gargoyles to top course, battlemented parapets with quatrefoil panelled merlons, panelled and crocketted corner pinnacles; central weathervane; full height octangonal stair turret to north-west corner: moulded 4-centre arched west doorway flanked by pilasters set diagonally; 5-light west window with sub-arcuated tracery and cusped transom in hollow-chamfered recess under headstop rail - with doorway occupies 2 stages, blank to north and south; on north and south faces stage 3 are 2-light windows in recesses, and pairs of matching windows stage 4 all faces with panelled stone baffles, clockface on east side.
Interior: much early work: chancel plain, unplastered walls and barrel vault ceiling: large rere-arch to east window; wide chancel arch with thin panelled jambs; standard C15/C16 arcades to side chapels. Nave: king-post truss roof of
1513, traceried panel infills, all members deeply moulded, quatrefoil panels of varying design to each bay, angel decoration to kingposts, central pendants mid-bay: arcades C16, but with traceried spandrils to arches up to clerestorey, with pilaster brackets over each column leading to canopied and side-panelled niches having C17 figure paintings; tower arch of 2 orders, outer panelled, and flanked on nave side by traceried panels and 2 tiers canopied niches, painted above, C20 figure statues below. Aisles and chapels have moulded rib ceilings, that to south-east chapel having bosses to panels, mostly C19. In south aisle a cinquefoil-cusped agee-arched piscina, and low tomb arch with rosette decoration containing worn female effigy, probably early C14; in north aisle, doors to rood loft. Fittings mostly C19, but C15 octagonal font with 2 cusped panels each face of bowl, with panelled underbowl and shaft: nicely detailed C19 octagonal stone pulpit; C20 Lady Chapel screen by F.Bligh Bond. Church first recorded 1156, but probably has Saxon origins. (Pevsner, Buildings of England South and West Somerset, 1958; Saunders GW, The Church of All Saints, Martock, 1967; VCH Vol III, 1974).
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