Description

ST73NW
2/26

BREWHAM CP
SOUTH BREWHAM
CHARCROFT HILL (West side)
Church of Saint John the Baptist

24.3.61

GV
II*

Church. Apparently C13 origins, with much rebuilding of late C19. Local stone cut and squared, with Doulting stone dressings; Welsh slate roofs between coped gables with ornamental finials, nave and chancel; lead roofs to aisles, without parapets. 4-unit plan with South West tower; 2-bay chancel, 5-bay nave, 4-bay North aisle, South aisle 3 bays with tower/porch.
Plain chancel, probably C19 rebuild; single cusped lancets without labels, one to East wall and two on South side, with small square headed doorway in chamfered recess between. Plain nave visible only at West end, with 3-light late C15 style traceried pointed arch window with label, an apparent C19 extension.
North aisle has C14 style tracery in almost round headed recess with no label to East wall: 3-light flat headed labelled windows with cusped ogee light in North wall, between offset buttresses, on C19 rebuild. South aisle simpler, of c1900.
Tower appears to be C13, of two stages, with plain imposts (scratch dial under East impost), and above a composite C13/C15 two light traceried window of which the head, with scribed pointed arch and quatrefoil light appears to be a C15 reworking of plate tracery: on West side an angled stone stair turret of uncertain date on an earlier plinth: to second stage, on all four faces, pairs of cusped lancet windows with slate baffles, and above these flat headed chamfered single light windows, again with slate baffles: sundial with iron rod gnomon just under string course of South face at East end.
Entrance porch has 4-panel timber ceiling, probably late C15 with moulded beams; a C13 style arch into the church with later segmental stilted sub- arch which may reuse portions of an earlier doorway, with plain recess to right of door.
Chancel has a C19 rib and panel vaulted ceiling, and Laudian altar rail. Chancel arch and nave arcades in C16 style, but only North arcade seems old. Nave has a C16 octagonal font with quatrefoil panels and sturdy moulded and panelled stem; corbel table on tower wall; depressed segmental arch trussed rafters with possibly C17 ribs and bosses. In North aisle an arched recess South of the East window; alongside this a small ogee-arched piscina and a blocked squint; in the South aisle an old octagonal tub font, possibly of C13, without a base, memorials include, in East wall of chancel, an undated panel with coat of arms and inscription to Edward Court, below which is inscribed in a coarser hand: Edward Bisse, natus Nove 28. 1637, Obiit Fe 2.1639; also two small brasses of 1673 and 1690 to Edward Bennet and his wife Susan, the latter signed in copperplate lettering: Guliet Cockey de Wincanto(n), reputed to be the only such signed brass found in Somerset.

Listing NGR: ST7196636140

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Church of Saint John the Baptist, South Brewham at Wikipedia
• Wikidata Q17553717

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

• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  [(Shropshire)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1958)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Listed Buildings and Other Heritage Assets
• 
  London 6: Westminster (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England): Westminster v. 6