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©  Mike Bedingfield LRPS

IoE Number: 33443
Location: ST BRIDGET'S CHURCH, CHELVEY (north side)
  BROCKLEY, NORTH SOMERSET, SOMERSET
Photographer: Mike Bedingfield LRPS
Date Photographed: 03 September 2000
Date listed: 11 October 1961
Date of last amendment: 11 October 1961
Grade I

ST 46 NEBROCKLEYCHELVEY (north side)6/51St. Bridget's Church11.10.61G.V.I

ST 46 NE BROCKLEY CHELVEY (north side) 6/51 St. Bridget's Church 11.10.61 G.V. I Parish Church (Anglican). C12, altered c. 1300 (chancel), C14 and C15. West tower, nave, south aisle and chapel, south porch, chancel. Coursed rubble with freestone dressings, ashlar porch; slate roofs with coped raised verges. West tower of 3 stages with diagonal buttresses; pierced parapet of trefoils within triangles, corner pinnacles; 2-light bellchamber openings with cusped tracery; 3-light Perpendiculor style west window and west door in moulded surround and under plain hoodmould; projecting polygonal stair tower on a square base to the north-east. Nave has two 3-light Perpendicular style windows (restored) with cusped tracery; central buttress with off-sets. Chancel has two single light cusped lancet windows; the east window is similar to the nave windows. South aisle and chapel: the east and 3 south windows are all 2-light, early Perpendicular style windows with plain ogee heads to the lights. The south porch is slightly set back behind the south aisle: diagonal buttress with off-sets; blank arcaded parapet; double wave moulding to the outer door; possibly reset C12 window on west wall. South doorway is mid C12: single columns with scalloped capitals, inner roll-moulding and thick roll-moulded arched; stoup to right with cusped ogee head. Interior. Tower arch of 2 wave moulding. The chancel is marked by a projection inwards of the north wall. Blocked north door with a chamfered surround and a depressed 2-centred arch. 2 bay arcade to south aisle and a smaller bay to the south chapel; the piers have alternating columns and wave mouldings; 4-centred arches. Chancel: the north windows have deep embrasures; the reredos is C19 but the frame is late C15 or C16, rectangular, decorated with fleurons and a crested top, the centre of which forms a canopy which rises above the window sill; flanking, plain, square-headed image niches; stone dado of the rood screen survives with a mortised sill beam for the screen. South aisle; ribbed and panelled roof with moulded wall- plates; rectangular, moulded surround to an inset for a reredos; flanking cusped ogee-headed image niches; piscina with cusped ogee head; 3 recessed niches in south wall with cusped and crocketted ogee canopies and blank arcaded bases. Pulpit: C19, wooden polygonal top on an ashlar base; behind is a blocked, chamfered doorway (probably to a missing or hidden rood stair). Font: probably C12 but recut; ashlar, octagonal bowl on an octagonal stem; C17 top. Pews: the front of the south nave pews is dated 1621/W.G. (William Gregory, Rector), panelled with a foliage frieze; the south chapel has 7 coarsely cut mediaeval benches, some retaining lozenge-shaped poppy heads and at the west end is the Tynte family pew, Jacobean, a panelled front with a foliage frieze and urn finials, the door has double S-shaped hinges, a high back with blank arcading, an enriched frieze and a moulded cornice; 4 further coarsely cut mediaeval benches to west end of south side of nave; wall painting, on the north chancel wall, of a ragged cross with a circle. Glass. Nave, north side; late C15 reversed pane of glass bearing arms; fragments of C14 yellow glass as symbols of the Evangelists. Chancel, east window; 013 and C15 fragments, including the head of Christ and a ton_sured head of a male saint with roses, crowns and borderwork. South aisle; several sun roundels. Monument: incised Purbeck slab to a knight, reset in the south chapel, probably 1250-1270. (N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England : North Somerset and Bristol, 1958. C. Woodforde, The Stained Glass of Somerset, 1250-1830; 1946).