Details
RUISHTON CP DRAKES CLOSE (West side)
ST22NE
1/100
Church of St George
25.2.55
GV I
Parish church. Norman, C14-C15 south chapel, refenestrated late C15, tower begun 1530'5, upper stages 1549, restored
and reseated 1866. Roughcast over rubble, Ham stone dressings, squared and coursed blue lias tower, random rubble south
chapel with parapet to slate roof, coped verges. West tower, 4-bay nave, 2 and a half bay south chapel, south porch,
chancel. Unfinished 4-stage tower without crenellations or parapet, pinnacles on setback buttresses, gargoyles, 2-light
bell openings with Somerset tracery, 2-light window below flanked by empty canopied niches with angle corbels, friezes
of quatrefoil decoration, 4-light west window with continuous hood mould set on quatrefoil decorated frieze, 4-centred
arch west door, hood mould with angle terminals, decorated spandrels, C19 double doors, clock on south face, stair
turret in north east corner also unfinished; south front, 2-light window left of single storey gabled porch of dressed
Ham stone, moulded arch opening, sundial above C16 ribbed ceiled barrel vault, Norman scalloped capital resting on
plinth and carrying entablature, no arch, to left of recessed chamfered 4-centred arch doorway with beaded, scalloped
capital to right only; south chapel projecting right with reset carved saint on arris, gargoyles below parapet set
above C20 stepped buttresses flanking two 2-light windows, early C19 lias tablet to Bennett family, 3-light east
window, 2-light north window to chancel, doorway to right, projecting rood stair with tiny 2-light window, two 2-light
windows in north wall of nave with 2 large and 2 small buttresses centre. Interior: rendered. Perpendicular tower arch
with panelled jambs, 2-light unglazed squint window in chancel wall giving view from chapel, doorway through giving
access from chapel to chancel; 2-bay Perpendicular arcade to chapel, eastern arch springing from chancel wall. Stone
winder stairs to rood loft cut across jambs of chancel window. Early C16 ceiled wagon roof to chancel, plastered chapel
roof, ceiled wagon roof to nave, moulded 4-panel compartment ceiling in tower. Fine carved and gilded Stuart royal coat
of arms. Extravagant late Perpendicular font, 4 square decorated shafts carrying octagonal panelled bowl on fan
vaulting pier, crockets and quatrefoil decoration. C18 panelled dado and turned baluster altar rails. Some medieval
stained glass surviving in rood stair window, much unsigned C19 glass. Early Cl9 stone altar in chapel, octagonal with
part fluted Doric columns. Pulpit c1920 presented as a thanks offering for the preservation of the 3 sons of the
Somerville family of Ruishton House in the 1914-18 war. Collection of memorials: slate and marble wall tablet to John
Arundel, died 1784, with sorrowing figure by urn in roundel, signed Drewett of Bristol; wall tablet to Charles Proctor
Anderdon, died 1824, signed T King of Bath with sorrowing figure by broken column; slate memorial to Jane Kimberly,
died 1808, signed M Long, Taunton; tablet of painted Ham stone to James Bond (007) and Mathew Bond died 1750 and 1756;
small brass to Edith Strong, died 1769; and collection of C18 slate and warble tablets to the Proctor and Anderdon
families. (Photograph in NMR; Kellys Directory 1889; Pevsner, Buildings of England, South and West Somerset, 1958;
Proceedings SANHS, vol 44, 1898).
Listing NGR: ST2637025113
