Details
ST 47 SE WRAXALL WRAXALL HILL (west side)
3/204 CHURCH OF ALL SAINTS
11.10.61
G.V. I
Parish Church (Anglican). C12, altered and enlarged early - mid C13 and late
C14; restored 1851 and 1893 by Sir Arthur Blomfield. West tower; nave; north
aisle and chapel; south porch and chapel; chancel. Ashlar and coursed rubble
with freestone dressings; slate and lead roofs with coped raised verges and
behind plain parapets. West tower: banded stone of 2 colours; 4 stages,
diagonal buttresses with off-sets; blank arcaded parapet with an image niche in
the centre of each side; square corner pinnacles surmounted by smaller pinnacles;
polygonal stair turret to north-east; 2-light windows in 2 tiers, string course
which rises to form a headmould; 2-light west window, image niche with ogee
head; moulded west doorway. Nave and south chapel: three 3-light Perpendicular
style windows with cusped tracery and square hoodmoulds; buttresses with off-
sets; sanctus bell-cote over east gable. South porch: square projecting porch,
diagonal buttresses with off-sets; pointed doorway of 2 orders, stiff-leaf
capitals to the columns (restored); dripmould with carved head stops; single
light lancets on first floor; sundial in centre of parapet; decorative wrought-
iron gate. Chancel: pointed priest's door has an inner roll moulding with
head stops, outer hoodmould also with head stops; two 2-light Perpendicular
style windows with cusped tracery, square heads and dripmoulds; 5-light C19
Perpendicular style east window. North aisle: three 3-light Perpendicular
style windows, as the south side; projecting polygonal rood stair turret;
pointed north door with outer roll moulding, hood mould with carved stops.
South doorway is C12, columns with scalloped capitals; pointed and chamfered
doorways to stairs to first floor room. Interior. Nave has 4 bay arcades, the
piers consist of alternating engaged columns and hollow mouldings and have
moulded capitals and abaci. Tower arch of continuous double hollow and ogee
moulding; chancel arch of continuous hollow and roll moulding. The nave and
north aisle roofs are C19, but rest on a good collection of C14 and C15 carved
corbel heads. Former doorways to rood stair have chamfered surrounds and 4-
centred heads; 4-centre headed doorway to upper room of porch to west of south
door. South chapel is reached through a tall 4-centred arch of hollow and wave
mouldings; 2 piscinae with ogee and trefoil head. The chancel is mostly late
C19 by Blomfield: 5-bay arch-braced collar beam roof with cusped windbracing.
The pulpit, lectern, organ and benches are also mid - late C19, in a Perpendicular
style; the screens are by Blomfield and particularly well carved. Font. C15,
octagonal, ashlar, with 2 blank arches on each side; on the pier adjoining the
font is a stone book-rest supported on a demi-figure of an angel. Glass: a
good collection of glass by C.E. Kempe from 1896, donated by the first Lord
Wraxall; in the room above the porch is a late C15 lancet representing the Five
Wounds, on a shield held by an angel. Monuments. Chancel: early C16 tomb
chest to Sir Edmund and Lady Gorges in armour and robes with a finely carved
front of heraldry flanked by angels; simple inscribed marble plaque to Thomas
Holt, died 1687. South chapel: Charles Brent, died 1729 and Margarita Coopey,
died 1744, aedicular marble tablets, flanked by pilasters with friezes. Nave:
John Lucas, died 1817, marble by Tyley, 2 parents stand by an urn. North aisle:
L. Lucas, died 1807, marble seated figure against a curved pedestal; W. King,
died 1792, marble plaque with an urn. George and Henry Seymour, 1827, marble
and freestone, gothic inscribed plaques with gabled canopies. The church is
prominently situated and is a fine landmark with excellent details of
Perpendicular style architecture (both mediaeval and late C19 by Blomfield).
(N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England : North Somerset and Bristol, 1958). .
Listing NGR: ST4902471971