Details
MELBURY OSMOND
ST 5707 MELBURY OSMOND
VILLAGE
8/106 Parish Church of
St Osmond
11.11.66
GV I
Parish Church. C15 west tower, much rebuilt, nave and chancel rebuilt at cost
of Mrs S Strangways Homer in 1745 (tablet in chancel). C19 refenestration in
chancel. Rubble-stone walls, ashlar-faced on south side. Slate roofs. West
tower: of 3 stages, with strings, classical cornice, embattled parapet and
crocketed finials, (refashioning of C18). West doorway has moulded jambs and
depressed-arch head. Plank door. Top stage on west side has an openwork
quatrefoil in roundel, C18. South side has a roundel to ground stage, second
stage has a 2-light window with Y-tracery, 3rd stage has a clock-face. Nave,
3 windows wide, with a cornice and embattled parapet. The windows are of 2-lights
with central stone mullion into Y tracery head, and are round-headed. South
doorway at centre (blocked) has a Gibbs surround, keyed lintel and moulded cornice.
Over the doorway is an oculus with a Gibbs surround. Chancel: south wall has a
window of 2 trefoiled lights, with a trefoil in spherical triangle in the head.
Label and head stops. Pointed-arch doorway and plank door. East window of
3 lights each trefoiled, with quatrefoils and trefoils in the head. Entrance
through west tower door. Interior: Tower arch with 2 orders of responds and
a hollow chamfer between, C15. Chancel-arch, with hollow-and-nave jamb mouldings
and a wide 2-centred arch, c.C18. Roofs: nave has flat wooden ceiling with
ribbed compartments, C20. Chancel has a cambered compartmented ceiling. Fittings:
Font, plain stone bowl set into tower responds, medieval. Sculpture: fragment
of an animal lying flat, trapped in interlacing foliage, c.C10, reset in chancel
N. Wall. Wall-monuments and tablets, to Mrs Homer in chancel recording the 1745
rebuilding. Nave has 4 marble wall tablets to John Perkins, 1791; Perkins, 1812;
Perkins, 1827; Sarah Perkins, 1834. Chest: in tower with enriched top rail and
panelled front, inscribed on lid "Ex dono Gregoni Hoopper, 1697".
(RCHM. Dorset I, p.159(1). Rev J C Townsend, Melbury Osmond, Its Church and People
(church guide)).
Listing NGR: ST5740207832