The Church of St Peter and St Paul in

Muchelney Muchelney () is a clustered village and civil parish in Somerset, England, extending for from the south bank of the River Parrett and that has a clustered centre. This is south of Huish and Langport and south west of Somerton in the South ...

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 Saxon origins, however the current building largely dates from the 15th century. It has been designated as 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 church, which is adjacent to the site of

Muchelney Abbey Muchelney Abbey is an English Heritage property in the village of Muchelney in the Somerset Levels, England. The site consists of ruined walls showing the layout of the abbey buildings constructed from the 7th to 16th centuries, and the remaini ...

and close to the River Parrett, has a ceiling enlivened with Jacobean paintings of bare-breasted angels, their nudity thought to symbolize innocent purity. They were painted in the early 17th century. The church also contains a

barrel organ A barrel organ (also called roller organ or crank organ) is a French mechanical musical instrument consisting of bellows and one or more ranks of pipes housed in a case, usually of wood, and often highly decorated. The basic principle is the sam ...

built by

Gray and Davison Grey (more common in British English) or gray (more common in American English) is an intermediate color between black and white. It is a neutral or achromatic color, meaning literally that it is "without color", because it can be composed o ...

and installed around 1835 to 1840. It is the last one known to be still in the church where it was first installed and still in working order. There is a three-bay aisled

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ov ...

with a short chapel on either side. It has a three-stage Somerset tower, dating from around 1468, supported by pairs of full-height corner

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral ( ...

es. The south-east 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 ...

leads to an outer door. The parish is part of the

Langport Langport is a small town and civil parish in Somerset, England, west of Somerton in the South Somerset district. The parish, which covers only part of the town, has a population of 1,081. Langport is contiguous with Huish Episcopi, a separate ...

Area Team Ministry benefice within the

Ilchester Ilchester is a village and civil parish, situated on the River Yeo or Ivel, five miles north of Yeovil, in the English county of Somerset. Originally a Roman town, and later a market town, Ilchester has a rich medieval history and was a nota ...

deanery.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Muchelney, Saints Peter and Paul 15th-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

See also

References