Listed Building: SYMONDSBURY PARISH CHURCH (ST JOHN THE BAPTIST) (401687)

SY 49 SW SYMONDSBURY SYMONDSBURY VILLAGE 6/142 Symondsbury Parish 5.9.60 Church (St John the Baptist) G.V. I Church. C14 with C15 porch, c C17 chancel, C20 north vestry. Nave without aisles, crossing and tower, north and south transepts, chancel, south porch, vestry. Lias rubble-stone with ashlar dressings, slate roofs with stone slates at the eaves. Nave, C14 with C15 window insertions to south wall. Blocked c C14 2-centred window at west end. C15 windows of 3 lights with super mullions and renewed tracery. Labels with head stops C15. South porch, C15, pointed archway with conventional responds. Embattled parapet with large diagonally set gargoyles. Diagonal buttresses. South transept with 4-light C19 window with Y-tracery. Short C20 buttresses. Central Tower: 3 stages with embattled parapet and gargoyles. 2nd stage with small single lights with trefoil heads. Bell-stage has two trefoiled lights in a square head with a label and returned stops. String-courses and embattled parapet with gargoyles. Chancel: main fabric is c C17 rebuilt with a re-set C15 east window, with renewed mullions. 2 C17 Perpendicular style windows in south wall. Doorway with chamfered jambs and pointed head. Re-set trefoiled head above it, perhaps C14. Interior: Nave, unplastered. Roof, segmental waggon-type, bossed at the intersections, C15. Line of former roof visible on the east wall. Door of wide planks, studded, C17, from porch. Doorway in east wall of nave above crossing-arch, led from rood loft to tower End stage. Crossing with C14 pointed arches of two continuous chamfered orders (East and West). North and south arches to transepts have moulded imposts and bases. Massive corbelling within the crossing carrying pointed arches, which support 2nd stage. Roofs of transepts and chancel, plastered waggon roofs with moulded wall plates. Squints from both transepts into chancel External features: south transept gable: panel with a re-set consecration cross. Stone gable copings with cross-heads over. External stair to tower between nave and north transept. Internal fittings: pulpit, wood, hexagonal with plain fielded panels, C18. Communion rails forming a square enclosure, turned posts, balusters and moulded top-rail ramped at corners, c 1730. Monuments: tablets in both transepts late 018 and C19. Font: stone bowl with 4 marbled colonettes with stiff-leaf capitals, C19. Flagstones throughout nave and crossing. Choir stalls, early C20 with medallion-heads to stalls: carved in wood, naturalistic leaves, fish, fruit, animals. "RCHM, Dorset I", p 236 (1). Listing NGR: SY4450693627

Record last edited

Nov 1 2018 10:58AM