Description

ST52SE WEST CAMEL CP

4/136 Church of All Saints

19.4.61

GV I

Church. Late C14 with earlier fragments. Local stone, random coursed,
Ham stone dressings; mostly lead roofs, but plain clay tiles to chancel
and stone slates to North transept; coped gables with finials; lead
covered spirelet. Cruciform plan with 2-bay chancel and 3-bay nave, with
tower instead of a South transept. Chancel has slight plinth and angled
corner buttresses; East window has reticulated tracery, the North and
South windows are 2-light cusped lancets with Quatrefoil over, with
arched hoods and relieving arches; small simple door and squint on South
side. North transept has part buttresses to corners and centre of North
wall; Eastern 3-light window in 4-centre arch with C15 tracery and in
North wall very small 2-light window with C15 tracery very rural in
character. Nave has bay buttresses of 3 different heights; a wide
2-centre arched 3-light window with C15 tracery set in a recess on the
North side, a cusped lancet and Quatrefoil and a large 3-light window
with wide pointed arch and C15 tracery on the South; the West window a
simple 3-light window of C15 with head bosses in the pointed label,
there being a simple segmental arched doorway under. The South porch of
C19, projecting a plain segmental arched doorway into the church.
Crenellated parapet to South side of nave; to North a low parapet with
bases for pinnacle finials. Tower simple, bulging towards base, in 3
stages denoted by slit windows on the South side and a string course
below bellchamber; corbel table to low parapet with gargoyles; lead
sheathed spirelet with weathervane; bellchamber windows on all 4 sides
with C13 tracery and wood baffles. Internally the chancel has a C19 arch
and arched rib ceiling to collar trussed rafters, the East window set in
a depressed trefoil rere-arch, flanked by 2 lancet niches and with stone
apron panel - possibly parts of an early reredos; sedelia and 2
piscinae, one each side, of C13; long squint from North transept. North
Transept arch of 2-orders has corbel shaft to bell capitals; timber
ribbed and bossed segmental barrel vault ceiling. South transept arch of
2-orders with no capitals, the mouldings carried down the jambs. Nave
roof a 5-bay medieval king-post truss with tracery infill panels, having
heavily moulded beams and principal rafters and bold Tudor rose central
bosses, elaborate wall plate and angel brackets at each mid-bay, all
with modern gold leaf and colouring. Fittings include a curved pulpit
front in C13 style, shown in different position in a pre-restoration
sketch of the church; a circular lead-lined font, probably C12, with
intersecting arch decoration, on modern base; and in the North transept
two C14 bench ends; 2 chests, one possibly C15 and the other C17; and
set into middle of floor fragment of a C9 Saxon cross-shaft with
cable-roll interlaced decoration on 2 faces, discovered above nave East
wall foundations in 1866. In tower 5 bells, the earliest of C15.
Monuments include: pedimented plaque, Revd. M. Hill, died 1744; a brass
tablet to Revd. J. Hinkesman, died 1746; plaque with draped urn, E.
Aubrery, died 1786, by T. King of Bath; marble plaque with urn, Crowbrow
family, died from 1796, by Fishers of York. Little known of early
history; few certain dates, including addition of spirelet in 1631,
rebuilding of chancel arch 1847, and some restoration for Revd. W.L.
Metcalf by Ewan Christian in 1866; a church of much interest and
variety, albeit sole being of rather rural character. (Pooley, Old
Crosses of Somerset, 1877; SANHS proceedings, Volumes 36, 59 and 105).

Listing NGR: ST5802824625

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of All Saints, West Camel at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q5116814

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

• 
  England's Post-War Listed Buildings
• 
  Setting up a Listed Building Heritage Partnership Agreement: Historic England Advice Note 5
• 
  Kent: North East and East (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Essex: Buildings of England Series (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Liverpool: Pevsner City Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)