Church Heritage Record 641148

West tower, nave with south porch, no aisles; chancel with north vestry.

The church was built in 1849-53 to replace an earlier simple two-cell building with a small bell-cote which stood slightly further south. Three Norman archways of the old church were re-used but otherwise the church is all of 1849-53.

The tower is of three stages with diagonal buttresses which rise to gablets at the foot of the third stage, where they support small pinnacles in the Somerset manner. The west wall is blind to north and south and has a cusped ogee-headed window of one light in the west wall. The middle stage has only small rectangular lights in the south, west and north faces and the four belfry openings repeat the design of the west window. The straight parapet has recessed rectangular panels cusped to resemble quatrefoils but no pinnacles, and a weathercock surmounts the low pyramidal roof. Access to the upper floors and to a west nave gallery is provided by a stone spiral staircase within a turret at the south-east angle which is capped by a semi-octagonal crocketted stone cap against the south tower wall. A moulded stone plinth surrounds the tower and continues all round the church.

The nave has two two-light windows in the south wall with ogee heads to the main lights and hoods ending in stops carved as human heads. In the west bay (there are no buttresses to divide the bays but only one at the south-east angle) is the entrance, with a gabled porch with low diagonal buttresses sheltering the south doorway. This is partly composed of Norman stones brought from the old church, and has two orders of carving round the arch, the inner with three bands of saltire crosses with circles between the arms, and the outer with three bands of triangular hatched ornament. The plain imposts are all of 1849-53. The north wall is of a different rhythm and has an identical doorway (which seems always to have been blocked) in the middle with another of the two-light windows to the west of it and a single light like the tower window to the east of it.

The chancel has two lancets in the south wall and one, much smaller, in the north wall. The east angles have low diagonal buttresses and the east window is of three lights with cusped intersecting tracery. The gable, like the nave roof, is quite steeply pitched. On the contrary, the small north vestry is in Perpendicular style with a very low pitched roof within a parapet, and three-light windows to north and east. These have ogee heads to the equal lights but no labels.

To begin at the west end, the tower arch is another of the Norman arches brought from the old church, and the finest of the three. The inner order has a plant form stylised into a symmetrical scrolling pattern and the outer order is a roll-moulding carved as a cable. The imposts and responds again are of 1849-53. The tower space is vaulted with four moulded ribs resting on moulded polygonal corbels with foliate pendants.

In the nave the windows are set within plain reveals and the arch in the north wall which indicates the position of the north blocked doorway suggests that it has never been open in this church. The floor is made of oak boards and the roof also is of oak, with collars and scissor-braces to each pair of rafters. There is a small gallery high above the tower arch with a simple panelled front. The chancel arch is supported by corbels similar to those in the tower space decorated with a rose and a thistle, and is of two orders In of wavy mouldings with a moulded hood having foliate stops. the north-east corner of the nave the pulpit is entered from the vestry by an arch under a gablet set across the angle between the nave walls. There is one step at the chancel arch.

The chancel has a wood block floor of oak (there being no tiles on the floors anywhere) and an arch to the vestry on the north side suggests that it was intended as an organ chamber as well as a vestry. The chancel roof is panelled and divided into squares by moulded ribs with foliate fleurons at the intersections. There is an ogee-headed credence recess in the north wall.