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© Mr John H. Sparkes
IoE Number:
261812
Location:
CHURCH OF ST NICHOLAS, CHURCH STREET (south side)
HENSTRIDGE, SOUTH SOMERSET, SOMERSET
Photographer:
Mr John H. Sparkes
Date Photographed:
07 June 2004
Date listed:
24 March 1961
Date of last amendment:
24 March 1961
Grade
II
The Images of England website consists of images of listed buildings based on the statutory list as it was in 2001 and does not incorporate subsequent amendments to the list. For the statutory list and information on the current listed status of individual buildings please go to The National Heritage List for England.
ST7219 HENSTRIDGE CP CHURCH STREET (South side)
10/76 Church of St Nicholas
24.3.61
GV II*
Parish Church. C12 origins, mostly rebuilt 1872-3 by J.M Allen; Tower rebuilt 1900 by E Buckle. Local stone cut and
squared, with Ham stone dressing: stone slate roofs between stepped coped gables with finials. 6-cell plan consisting
of 3-bay chancel, 4-bay nave, North and South aisles, 2-bay North East chantry chamel and 2-bay South East organ
chamber and vestry, with West tower and South Porch. In C14/C15 style mostly. Chancel has plinth, cill course, and
double offset corner buttresses; 3 light geometric traceried East window and similar South window, both under pointed
labels with headstops. Organ chamber has diagonal corner buttress, a simpler 2-light traceried window and pointed
arched doorway on South side, and another 2-light window to the East. The South aisle has bay buttresses and 3-light
geometric traceried windows in the South wall, with a blank West wall: South porch on second bay from West has C13
style pointed arch doorways, the inner with ball flower decoration, The North East Chantry chapel has a diagonal corner
buttress, a late C15 style 3-light East window and rather wide catching North window. The North aisle was not rebuilt;
it has bay buttresses with offsets, 3-light late C15 style pointed arched windows without labels, and in second bay
from East a blocked moulded C15 doorway; West wall blank. Tower in 3 stages with plinth, string courses, battlemented
parapet with corner pinnacles, and angled corner buttresses with offsets to full height; square plan stair turret with
pitched roof, 2 stages high, on South East corner; unusual ship weathervane; 4-light C15 style traceried West window
with transome and subarcuation, the label forming a step up in the string course: 2nd stage has a 2-light window to the
North, and small cusped lancets to South and West, with curvilinear tracery to the 2-light window at head of stair
turret. 3 has tall 2 light C15 style traceried windows with labels and pierced wood baffles to all faces. Inside, the
chancel has a ribbed and boarded 4-plane ceiling; late C19 furniture including brass communion rail in early Art
Nouveau manner: the double arch into the chantry chapel almost certainly C13, with octagonal piers, broached base,
moulded capitals and double chamfer arches; in Easternmost arch an elaborate canopied tomb, richly carved with
considerable traces of colour, with 2 recumbent effigies on slab with panelled sides, with 4-centre finely cusped
canopy arches and quatrefoil and rose coffering, commemorating William Cavent, High Sheriff of Somerset and Dorset,
died c1463. In the Chantry chapel a North East corner canopy, probably early C16: narrow arch into North Aisle could be
C13. Nave arcade in C13 style, but photograph in church shows it to be a complete rebuild, and remaining work all C19:
the font in the under tower space has a plain octagonal bowl on tall octagonal shaft with moulded base and collar,
probably C13. Several lesser C18 memorial tablets on West wall of North aisle. First known rector 1175, otherwise few
details known. (Wakeford, A History of Henstridge, 1953).