| Bruton,
Somerset - St Mary Church 14th-18th centuries Click on photos to enlarge |
||||
 |
||||
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
| One of the proudest churches of East Somerset. Built of Doulting stone, as is most of the town. ... In the late C15 the splendid W tower was added. This is 102½ ft high, and has set-back buttresses connected by a diagonal across the angle of the tower which thus disappears. The buttresses carry long shafts set diagonally and crowned by pinnacles quite detached from the wall, and the main diagonal is continued into the main pinnacles, also set diagonally. Large W door with W window of five lights over. Two niches by its sides and one above it. The next stage has a two-light window with niches on shafts to its l. and r. The bell-stage has three tall two-light windows with transoms and Somerset tracery. They are flanked by shafts with pinnacles. On the N side this arrangement is modified, because the stair-turret interferes. The battlements have shields and quatre-foils but are not pierced. ... | ||||
 |
|
|
 |
 |
| The N porch tower looks late C14. It has diagonal buttresses and battlements. Plain two-light bell-openings. Of the same date the N aisle with battlements and three-light windows with Perp tracery. The same tracery in the S aisle, but here the parapet must have been altered when the clerestory was added early in the C16. ... Between 1506 and 1523 the nave received a clerestory of uncommonly wide, not very high four-light windows. The clerestory parapet of pierced trefoiled triangles is repeated over the aisles. ... | ||||
 |
||||
| In 1743 the chancel was rebuilt. It is a handsome piece of its date. There is no east window but a pediment with the Berkeley arms. The N and S windows are of two lights with round heads and a circle above ... | ||||
Evercreech - another Somerset Tower
