The Church of the Blessed Virgin Mary in
Huish Episcopi
Huish Episcopi is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated on the outskirts of Langport, south west of Somerton in the South Somerset district. The parish has a population of 2,095, and includes the hamlets of Bowdens, Combe, P ...
,
Somerset
( en, All The People of Somerset)
, locator_map =
, coordinates =
, region = South West England
, established_date = Ancient
, established_by =
, preceded_by =
, origin =
, lord_lieutenant_office =Lord Lieutenant of Somerset
, lord_ ...
, England, has 12th-century origins but was largely rebuilt in the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries. It has been designated as a
Grade I listed
In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...
building.
St Mary's Church also serves nearby Langport. Built in
blue lias
The Blue Lias is a geological formation in southern, eastern and western England and parts of South Wales, part of the Lias Group. The Blue Lias consists of a sequence of limestone and shale layers, laid down in latest Triassic and early Jurassi ...
with golden
hamstone
Hamstone is the name given to a honey-coloured building stone from Ham Hill, Somerset, England. It is a well-cemented medium to coarse grained limestone characterised by marked bedding planes of clay inclusions and less well-cemented material w ...
decoration, the church is most noted for its classic
Somerset tower, deemed to be an architectural companion piece to St Martin's Church in
Kingsbury Episcopi
Kingsbury Episcopi is a village and civil parish on the River Parrett in Somerset, England, situated north west of Yeovil in the South Somerset district. The village has a population of 1,307. The parish includes the villages of West Lambrook, ...
.
A church was present on the site during the 11th century.
[ The current church was built after a fire in the previous structure. It was dedicated in 1232.
St Mary's tower dates from around 1500 and was built in four stages replacing an earlier central tower. It is extensively embellished with ]pinnacle
A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...
s and quatrefoil
A quatrefoil (anciently caterfoil) is a decorative element consisting of a symmetrical shape which forms the overall outline of four partially overlapping circles of the same diameter. It is found in art, architecture, heraldry and traditional ...
panel bands. In the north-east corner is an octagonal stair turret
Turret may refer to:
* Turret (architecture), a small tower that projects above the wall of a building
* Gun turret, a mechanism of a projectile-firing weapon
* Objective turret, an indexable holder of multiple lenses in an optical microscope
* Mi ...
which reaches the full height of the tower. The tower was depicted on a postage stamp
A postage stamp is a small piece of paper issued by a post office, postal administration, or other authorized vendors to customers who pay postage (the cost involved in moving, insuring, or registering mail), who then affix the stamp to the fa ...
in 1972.
A stained glass window by Edward Burne-Jones
Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...
is also noteworthy.
The churchyard contains two Commonwealth war graves
The Commonwealth War Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organisation of six independent member states whose principal function is to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth of Nations mi ...
, of a Lincolnshire Regiment
The Royal Lincolnshire Regiment was a line infantry regiment of the British Army raised on 20 June 1685 as the Earl of Bath's Regiment for its first Colonel, John Granville, 1st Earl of Bath. In 1751, it was numbered like most other Army regiments ...
soldier of World War I
World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
and a Royal Artillery
The Royal Regiment of Artillery, commonly referred to as the Royal Artillery (RA) and colloquially known as "The Gunners", is one of two regiments that make up the artillery arm of the British Army. The Royal Regiment of Artillery comprises t ...
soldier of World War II
World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...
.
CWGC cemetery report, details from casualty record.
See also
*
List of Grade I listed buildings in South Somerset
South Somerset is a local government district in the English county of Somerset. The South Somerset district occupies an area of , stretching from its borders with Devon and Dorset to the edge of the Somerset Levels. The district has a populatio ...
*
List of towers in Somerset
The Somerset towers, church towers built in the 14th to 16th centuries, have been described as among England's finest contributions to medieval art. The paragraphs and descriptions below describe features of some of these towers. The organization ...
*
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Huish Episcopi, Blessed Virgin Mary
14th-century church buildings in England
Church of England church buildings in South Somerset
Grade I listed churches in Somerset
Grade I listed buildings in South Somerset