The Church of St Peter at Hornblotton in the parish of

West Bradley West Bradley is a village and civil parish 4 miles south-east of Glastonbury in the Mendip district of Somerset, England. The parish includes the hamlets of Hornblotton and Lottisham. Hornblotton Green is a traditional English community with a s ...

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, was built in 1872–74 by Sir

Thomas Graham Jackson Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, 1st Baronet (21 December 1835 – 7 November 1924) was one of the most distinguished British architects of his generation. He is best remembered for his work at Oxford, including the Oxford Military College at Cowl ...

, for the rector,

Godfrey Thring Godfrey Thring (25 March 1823 – 13 September 1903), was an Anglican clergyman and hymn writer. Life Godfrey Thring was born at Alford, Somerset, the son of the rector, Rev. John Gale Dalton Thring and Sarah née Jenkyns. He was brother of Th ...

replacing a medieval church on the same site. It is a Grade I

listed building 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 ...

, The Victorian building is on the site of an earlier church which had fallen into disrepair, from which a stump of the tower remains in the churchyard. The

piscina A piscina is a shallow basin placed near the altar of a church, or else in the vestry or sacristy, used for washing the communion vessels. The sacrarium is the drain itself. Anglicans usually refer to the basin, calling it a piscina. For Roman ...

and a memorial in the vestry, were reused from the original church. One of the features of the church is an early electric clock and the first in England to have a striking mechanism. It was controlled from a master clock in the nearby house. The clock mechanism was taken to the

Science Museum A science museum is a museum devoted primarily to science. Older science museums tended to concentrate on static displays of objects related to natural history, paleontology, geology, industry and industrial machinery, etc. Modern trends in mu ...

in London for restoration in 1984. It was made by Charles Shepherd who also made the Shepherd Gate Clock mounted on the wall outside the gate of the

Royal Greenwich Observatory The Royal Observatory, Greenwich (ROG; known as the Old Royal Observatory from 1957 to 1998, when the working Royal Greenwich Observatory, RGO, temporarily moved south from Greenwich to Herstmonceux) is an observatory situated on a hill in G ...

. The interior walls of the church are decorated with

sgraffito ''Sgraffito'' (; plural: ''sgraffiti'') is a technique either of wall decor, produced by applying layers of plaster tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface, or in pottery, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive laye ...

which is produced by applying layers of

plaster Plaster is a building material used for the protective or decorative coating of walls and ceilings and for Molding (decorative), moulding and casting decorative elements. In English, "plaster" usually means a material used for the interiors of ...

tinted in contrasting colours to a moistened surface, or in

ceramics A ceramic is any of the various hard, brittle, heat-resistant and corrosion-resistant materials made by shaping and then firing an inorganic, nonmetallic material, such as clay, at a high temperature. Common examples are earthenware, porcelain ...

, by applying to an unfired ceramic body two successive layers of contrasting

slip Slip or SLIP may refer to: Science and technology Biology * Slip (fish), also known as Black Sole * Slip (horticulture), a small cutting of a plant as a specimen or for grafting * Muscle slip, a branching of a muscle, in anatomy Computing and ...

, and then in either case scratching so as to produce an outline drawing. The decoration includes representations of

Moses Moses hbo, מֹשֶׁה, Mōše; also known as Moshe or Moshe Rabbeinu (Mishnaic Hebrew: מֹשֶׁה רַבֵּינוּ, ); syr, ܡܘܫܐ, Mūše; ar, موسى, Mūsā; grc, Mωϋσῆς, Mōÿsēs () is considered the most important pro ...

Isaiah Isaiah ( or ; he, , ''Yəšaʿyāhū'', "God is Salvation"), also known as Isaias, was the 8th-century BC Israelite prophet after whom the Book of Isaiah is named. Within the text of the Book of Isaiah, Isaiah himself is referred to as "the ...

Jeremiah Jeremiah, Modern: , Tiberian: ; el, Ἰερεμίας, Ieremíās; meaning " Yah shall raise" (c. 650 – c. 570 BC), also called Jeremias or the "weeping prophet", was one of the major prophets of the Hebrew Bible. According to Jewish ...

and the

Annunciation The Annunciation (from Latin '), also referred to as the Annunciation to the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Annunciation of Our Lady, or the Annunciation of the Lord, is the Christian celebration of the biblical tale of the announcement by the ange ...

. The technique is attributed to the Arts and Crafts Movement and, at Hornblotton, have been created by cutting away the upper coat of white cement and leaving exposed the strawberry coloured undercoat of plaster including terracotta patterns of sunflowers and leaves. The parish is part of the Six Pilgrims

benefice A benefice () or living is a reward received in exchange for services rendered and as a retainer for future services. The Roman Empire used the Latin term as a benefit to an individual from the Empire for services rendered. Its use was adopted by ...

within the deanery of Bruton and Cary.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Hornblotton, Church of St Peter Churches completed in 1874 19th-century Church of England church buildings Grade I listed churches in Somerset Church of England church buildings in Mendip District Grade I listed buildings in Mendip District

See also

References