Details
ST 35 NE HUTTON C.P. CHURCH LANE
5/7 Church of Saint Mary the Virgin
9.2.61
G.V. II*
Anglican Parish Church. C15, major extension and restoration 1849 by S.C. Fripp.
Coursed rubble, freestone dressings, slate roofs. West tower, nave, chancel,
north vestry, south aisle. All Perpendicular. 3-stage tower with plinth,
diagonal buttresses rising to crocketed finials, polygonal stair turret at south
east; first stage has C15, plank west door in richly moulded four-centered arch
under drip with angel stops below 3-light window; at second stage, blank 2-light
openings with grotesque stops, except east, no opening, at north, string is
broken by clock of 1887; third stage, each face has paired 2-light windows to
bell chamber, outer light blank, inner crocketed finials; gargoyles and a trefoil
pierced parapet; stair turret has cusped panels and is surmounted by a hexagonal
spirelet. 2-bay nave has 3-light windows between buttresses, at east a polygonal,
battlemented rood stair turret has one tiny quatrefoil light, at gable head sits
a sanctus bell cote of C15 work, but reset. Gabled chancel of 1849 has 3-light
east window and two 2-light windows to south, on either side of a plain priest's
door, all under a continuous string. Similar north vestry of 1870 has a 2-light
east window and cusped lancets to north and west. 3-bay, gabled south aisle,
also 1849, sits between 2 buttresses of original south wall and has 3 three-light
windows; in east gable a C15 canopied niche is reset. Interior: tall, moulded
tower arch of waves and hollows rises to a lierne tracery vault on angel corbels,
there is a C19 screen with mock linenfold. Nave has a Wagon roof with decorated
wall plate and bosses, remains of rood stair openings now house stairs to refixed
stone pulpit of the local school-corbelled with friezes from a narrow stem, each
panel has 2 cusped lights, separated by crocketed finials, all surmounted by
2 further floreate friezes. The wave and step moulded C15 chancel arch enters
work of 1849 with wagon roof and wide north arch into vestry to house organ, there
is a reset C16 niche, tudor arch with cusped panels in the soffit and decorated
spandrels, now housing damaged mural brass to the Payne family, 1528. South
aisle has a 3-bay arcade, octagonal piers with attached shafts. Glass: East
window in nave has fragments of C15 and later heraldic glass, remainder is
victorian and later. Fittings: simple, octagonal font of late date, low, plain
box pews of 1785 in north nave, stone reredos, between crocketed and canopied
niches, of 1858. Tablets: south aisle, marble and slate, with crown bearing
arms, family effigies, Nathaniel Still, 1626; chest tomb on dark ground, Watson
1833, by Wheeler, Gloucester; chancel, all slate lozenge, flanked by naive
columns, above, an hourglass, below, cherubs and a skull, Robert Willis, 1719;
south chancel wall, freestone, ogee headed moulded canopy, marble tablet with urn
on dark ground to J. Smith, Rector, 1825, by Lancaster and Walker of Bristol.
Sources: Coward, 'The Church of Saint Mary the Virgin, Hutton'. n.d.
N. Pevsner. 'The Buildings of England : North Somerset and Bristol' 1958.
Listing NGR: ST3524558598
