Church Heritage Record 634027

The original church was simply a nave of four bays with a west bell-cote and a shallow chancel at the east end. Vialls added a west baptistery, a south porch and south transept al organ-chamber with a small vestry attached.

The present church was built in 1840-1 to designs by Richard Carver of Taunton. The building was restored and the organ chamber, baptistery and south porch added in 1898 to designs by George Vialls at the expense of Sir Henry Peto.

Richard Carver (c.1792-1862) was probably a pupil of Sir Jeffry Wyatville and later established himself at Taunton where he held the post of county surveyor. He designed a number of churches of which the most notable are probably Wiveliscombe, Theale (Somerset) and the octagonal Blackford, all early in his career. 

Carver's church of 1840 was a presentablebuilding, even if not very inspired. It was of four bays separated from each other by buttresses and each with a two-light window, the lights with cinquefoiled heads and a quatrefoil above. On the west gable was a bell-cote with a plain arch for one bell and a silly pinnacle on top and at the cast end was a shallow recess for the sanctuary with a properly archaeological three-light east window with reticulated tracery. The west gable was pierced by a small six-potalled rose window.

To this Vialls added a small western baptistery under a gabled roof with small paired lights in the north and south walls and a larger window of similar design in the west wall, all these derived from the style which Carver had already set. In the first bay of the south wall Vialls added a porch rather later in style with a four-centred arch having carved foliage within a hollow moulding round the top and a moulded hood ending in busts of musician angels. Carved in relief on the gable is the pilgrin's shell of St. James. From the easternmost bay of the south side he built out an organ chamber under a cross-gable, like a transept, with a pair of two-light windows in the south wall of rather heavier detailing than Carver had used, a smaller two-light window in the east wall and a vestry under a parallel gable of smaller dimensions against the west well. The vestry has a door in the west wall. These additions are all on the south and west sides, so that the shape of Carver's original church can still be seen from the north- east while Vialls' additions give a more varied profile from the south-west.

Carver's work inside has the same blend of accurate. mediaeval detailing imposed upon a late Georgian shell. The nave walls are plastered and the roof has a tie-beam at each bay with a plastered ceiling above, the space above each tie-beam being filled with spindly arcading. The stone corbels on which these beams rest are unscholarly, but the whole hangs together well enough. The floor has plain red tiles in the alleys and wooden boards under the pews. The windows stand within plain reveals as might be expected and in the nave the walls are lined out to resemble ashlar, but Vialls's work introduced more careful masonry - the small arch to the west baptistery with its chamfered responds but moulded head is typical of his style. Inside as well as outside, the most noteworthy part of the original building, in spite of its unecclesiologically small size, is the chancel, with a good east window enriched by Kempe glass and framed by a stone chancel arch with attached shafts having foliate capitals and fleurons on the inner order of moulding. It is outlined by a moulded hood ending in square stops. Since there are no windows in the side walls the chancel is rather dark. There are two steps at the arch and one more at the rails before the footpace is reached. On the north side of the arch is the pulpit and on the south a large clergy stall. Behind the latter a wooden screen closes the plain arch to the south transeptal organ chamber. At the head of the nave walls are painted suitable texts and the stencilled decoration on the nave ceiling and round the chancel arch, though simple, is a good and unaltered example of the genre.