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© Mr John Barker
IoE Number:
415419
Location:
CHURCH OF ST JOHN THE BAPTIST,
HORSINGTON, SOUTH SOMERSET, SOMERSET
Photographer:
Mr John Barker
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.
ST72SW HORSINGTON CP
7/42 Church of St John the Baptist
24.3.61
GV II*
Parish church. Mostly C19, with C15 & C18 fragments: rebuilt 1885-87 by Willcox of Bath. Local stone cut and squared,
Ham stone ashlar dressings; plain clay tile roofs between coped gables with finials. 4-cell plan with 3-bay chancel,
5-bay nave and South aisle, and South East vestry with organ chamber; North porch and West Tower. In an Early English
style mostly. Chancel has plinth, cill course and gabletted corner buttresses; 4-light East windows with C19 tracery
under pointed arch with label; simple lancet windows in North wall: on South side the vestry with Organ chmber with
single-light windows and an ornamental chimney to East wall; on the South wall a 4-light reticulated traceried flat
headed window, and cambered arched doorway set on angle against South Aisle marked by plinth, offset buttreses between
bays, & plain parapet with pinnacles; 2-light C19 traceried window. The North wall of the nave has offset corner
buttreses only, and incorporates part of an earlier church wall; tall 2-light C19 traceried windows, with central North
Porch having diagonal corner buttresses with offsets and pinnacles and simple moulded arch. The West Tower of several
dates, with C15 on C16 base and extra stage added in 1738: diagonal corner buttresses with offsets for half height,
string course dividing the two stages, and battlemented parapet over second string course with corner pinnacles; small
stair turret with angled door to North West corner; tower crowned with small wood turet with lead roof capped with a
windvane: lower storeys plain on North and South sides; West face has a blocked C18 doorway under a C15 traceried
window without label removed from a house in Stowell, Charlton Horethorne CP, 1709, and incorporated here in 1886;
above this a C18 near oval window with architrave; to all faces on the second stage are semi-circular arched windows
with architrave, impost blocks and keystones, the windows having wooden baffles: the clockface, on the East side, was
for the use of travellers on the now defunct North/South road through the village. The interior is High Victorian, with
barrel vault openwork timber roofs, unplastered walls and patterned clay tile floors: carved wood and painted reredos
of Italian origin, date unknown; nave and chancel arches nicely detailed, the tower arch filled by an Art Noveau screen
of 1902 made by villagers of North Curry. Fittings include an octagonal font of c1400 with double quatrefoil panels.
East windows by Kempe, 1886. Fittings inxlude an octagonal font of c1400 with double quatrefoil panels under rim, then
shaped bowl with angels to each angle, panelled shaft and less delicate base; wrought chancel screen and openwork
pulpit of 1887. Hatchment board of Dodington family (of Horsington House, from 1790- 1922) in undertower space; several
C18 monuments in nave to Dodingtons and the Wickham family, who were Rectors from 1686 to 1897. The first recorded
Rector was of 1305, but the first mention is a tax record of 1272. Apart from the heightening of the tower in 1738 the
church was largely rebuilt in 1818-1819 as well as in 1885-7. (John A Cross, A History and Guide Book of Horsington,
undated).