Church of St John the Baptist

Details

This list entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 16/12/2019

ST72SW
7/42

HORSINGTON CP
Church of St John the Baptist

24.3.61

GV
II*
Parish church. Mostly C19, with C15 and C18 fragments: rebuilt 1885-87 by Willcox of Bath. Local stone cut and squared, Ham stone ashlar dressings; plain clay tile roofs between coped gables with finials. Four-cell plan with three-bay chancel, five-bay nave and south aisle, and south east vestry with organ chamber; north porch and west tower.

In an Early English style mostly. Chancel has plinth, cill course and gabletted corner buttresses; four-light east windows with C19 tracery under pointed arch with label; simple lancet windows in north wall: on south side the vestry with organ chamber with
single-light windows and an ornamental chimney to east wall; on the south wall a four-light reticulated traceried flat headed window, and cambered arched doorway set on angle against south aisle marked by plinth, offset buttresses between bays, and plain parapet with pinnacles; two-light C19 traceried window. The north wall of the nave has offset corner buttresses only, and incorporates part of an earlier church wall; tall two-light C19 traceried windows, with central north porch having diagonal corner buttresses with offsets and pinnacles and simple moulded arch.

The west tower of several dates, with C15 on C16 base and extra stage added in 1738: diagonal corner buttresses with offsets for half height, string course dividing the two stages, and battlemented parapet over second string course with corner pinnacles; small stair turret with angled door to north west corner; tower crowned with small wood turret with lead roof capped with a windvane: lower storeys plain on north and south sides; west face has a blocked C18 doorway under a C15 traceried window without label removed from a house in Stowell, Charlton Horethorne CP, 1709, and incorporated here in 1886; above this a C18 near oval window with architrave; to all faces on the second stage are semi-circular arched windows with architrave, impost blocks and keystones, the windows having wooden baffles: the clockface, on the east side, was for the use of travellers on the now defunct north/south road through the village.

The interior is High Victorian, with barrel vault openwork timber roofs, unplastered walls and patterned clay tile floors: carved wood and painted reredos by George Kruger Gray, 1920; nave and chancel arches nicely detailed, the tower arch filled by an Art Nouveau screen of 1902 made by villagers of North Curry.

Fittings include an octagonal font of c1400 with double quatrefoil panels. East windows by Kempe, 1886. Fittings include an octagonal font of c1400 with double quatrefoil panels under rim, then shaped bowl with angels to each angle, panelled shaft and less delicate base; wrought chancel screen and openwork pulpit of 1887. Hatchment board of Dodington family (of Horsington House, from 1790- 1922) in undertower space; several C18 monuments in nave to Dodingtons and the Wickham family, who were Rectors from 1686 to 1897. The first recorded Rector was of 1305, but the first mention is a tax record of 1272.

Apart from the heightening of the tower in 1738 the church was largely rebuilt in 1818-1819 as well as in 1885-1887.

Listing NGR: ST7029723861

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

415419

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Cross, J, A History and Guide Book of Horsington, ()
Orbach, J, Pevsner, N, The Buildings of England. Somerset: South and West, (2015), 368

End of official list entry

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