Description

ST6939
13/10

BATCOMBE CP
BATCOMBE VILLAGE
Church of St. Mary the Virgin

2.6.61

GV
I
Anglican parish church. Mainly C15, C16, restored C19. Rubble and ashlar, freestone dressings, tile and lead-sheeting roofs. Nave, chancel, north and south aisles, south porch, north vestry.

West tower. Perpendicular. Lofty three-stage tower with set-back buttresses terminating on third stage as pinnacles, shaft clasped between the buttresses, terminating as pinnacle; pierced parapet, gargoyles, tall double-transoned three-light bell-chamber openings, lower halves virtually blank, upper halves with stone quatrefoil grilles, flanking shafts and shafts between the openings, polygonal stair-turret to north, to south two crocketted niches for statuary; enriched west face with a four-light window divided into two-plus-two sub-arches, west doorway with leaf spandrels, string over with three decapitated angel figures; niche with figure with six attendant angels; south side with C18 monument at base; clock on two faces with Roman numerals.

Four bay nave with a clerestory, pierced parapet, pinnacles gargoyles, three-light windows with depressed-arch heads. Four bay south aisle, two windows to south of four-lights with square heads, pierced parapet, buttresses, west window of three-lights with a pointed-arch head, below it a C18 monument. Gabled porch with a stone-tiled roof dated 1629, slender buttresses, those to front with crocketted finials, label with strapwork ornamentation, depressed-arch opening with foliate spandrels, paired C18 panelled doors; achievement and encircling text to gable face. Further similar achievement to left of door opening. Four bay north aisle with pierced parapet, buttresses, pinnacles, three-light windows, at east end polygonal stair-turret.

Two bay chancel, two two-light square-headed windows to south,C17 (?) three-light mullioned and transomed east window, traces of the jambs of the earlier window, below a C18 memorial. Large C20 vestry.

Interior predominantly plastered on flagstone floors. Nave with low-pitched tie-beam roof, C18, large angel corbels of a former roof also retrain. Aisles with lean-to roofs with moulded ribs and bosses, to north with corbels carved as angels. Chancel with simple C19 roof. Tower with fan-vault. Four bay aisle arcades with piers of four-hollows section; chancel arch in conforming style; lofty panelled tower arch. Chancel with cusped C13 piscina. Hagioscopes. Upper and lower entrances to the rood.

In north aisle near the east end two low cusped ogee-headed recesses. Richly carved octagonal font, Perpendicular trough much restored. A second font also present, C15, octagonal with simple quatrefoil panels. Chest dated 1683. Laudian altar rails. C19 brass lectern. Good set of pews of 1960.

Many memorials, some in the form of medieval wall paintings, presently covered. Four C18 wall monuments by T.King of Bath, Ford of Bath, and Reeves and Son; C17 brass to Bisse family; C17 monument to Bisse family, probably c1640 with strapwork cresting. C19 wall monuments. C18 oil painting, The Nativity. Brass candelabra,donated 1737. At the east end of the south aisle a stained glass window of c1896, by Heaton, Butler and Bayne; East window by A.K.Nicholson of 1930.

(Photographs in NMR; Illustrated J, Buckler 1829 and W.W. Wheatley 1842).

Listing NGR: ST6901339030

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of St Mary the Virgin, Batcombe at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5117580

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings: The Law and Practice of Historic Buildings, Ancient Monuments and Conservation Areas
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)