Details
STOCKLINCH CP OWL STREET (North side, off)
ST3817 STOCKLINCH OTTERSEY
6/106 Church of St Mary the Virgin
(formerly listed as Church of St.
Mary)
4.2.58
GV II*
Anglican parish church. C13 and later. Ham stone rubble with ashlar dressings; Welsh slate roofs with stepped coped
gables, with stone slate base course to chancel. Three-cell plan of 2-bay chancel, 3-bay nave and single bay south
transept, with north-east vestry, south porch and west tower. Chancel of C14, with simple plinth, no buttresses; east
window triple-lancet plate tracery with C19 label; on south side a 2-light plate-traceried window with stairlight
above, and to left a projection with blocked pointed-arched doorway; to north wall a 2-light cusped lancet window
without label, with a similar window in north wall of vestry, which has a small pointed-arched east doorway. Transept
has plinth, angled corner buttresses; two 2-light later C14 traceried windows in east wall, and one in west, and in
south wall a 3-light Geometric traceried window of somewhat rural pattern. Nave has C15 windows on south side, to east
of a porch a 3-light traceried window in hollowed pointed-arched recess; on north wall a 2-light flat-arched window in
moulded recess, of earlier pattern than that in south wall; to east of this a projection for former rood stair with
possibly an earlier effigy recess below, and incentre of north wall a blocked pointed-arched doorway. South porch has
simple wave-moulded pointed arch externally with C19 wrot-iron gate, and matching inner arch with C19 door; bench seats
and pitched stone vault ceiling; small blocked window in east wall. West tower has 2 stages; plinth, angled corner
buttresses to west, string course and battlemented parapets, with octagonal plan stair turret having outside door on
north-east corner: no west door but a 3-light west window to match that in south east corner of nave, the label
breaking into stage above; on south side a single cusped lancet to lower stage 2, and at higher lvel each face a
2-light C15 window. Interior has some C19 and C20 work as well as original details. Chancel has timber rib and panel
ceiling; cinquefoil rere-arch to east window and trefoil rere-arch to south-east window; panelled C15 chancel arch.
South transept has shallower-pitched arched-braced collar truss roof with side shafts and rere-arches to all windows,
that to the south having open cinquefoil cusps; double C14 archway into nave and chancel, the centre column being
integral with the chancel arch jamb, above being a quatrefoil panel in the nave wall: nave has ceiling of 1910;
rere-arches to east windows and moulded hollowed reveals to west: tall C15 tower arch with shafts and hollows. Fittings
include C17 altar table; C13 tub font with moulded turned base and broaches to corners of square plinth, the bowl
having a ring of stiff-leaf decoration; trefoil-cusped piscina with corbel to basin in transept. Effigy recess in south
nave wall, cinquefoil, probably early C14, and the effigy of a woman, possibly wife of William of 0stricier, Lord of
the manor 1272-1307, on cill of south window to transept; below this a double tablet memorial to Nicholas Jeffrey
Senior, died 1685, and others of family. A bequest board on north wall of tower dated 1795, and a Charles II hatchment
over south doorway dated 1664. First recorded rector of 1321. The church, having been declared redundant, passed into
the care of the Redundant Churches Fund in November 1973. (Pevsner, N, Buildings of England, South and West Somerset,
1959, but read the description for St Mary Magdalene, Stocklinch as the two are transposed: leaflet in church, anon,
undated).
Listing NGR: ST3866917084
