Stoke Pero Church in

Stoke Pero Luccombe or Luckham is a village and civil parish in the Exmoor National Park in the English county of Somerset. It at the foot of the moor's highest hill, the Dunkery Beacon, and is about one mile south of the A39 road between Porlock and Mineh ...

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 the 13th century. It is a Grade II*

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 ...

. Standing above sea level, it is the highest church on

Exmoor Exmoor is loosely defined as an area of hilly open moorland in west Somerset and north Devon in South West England. It is named after the River Exe, the source of which is situated in the centre of the area, two miles north-west of Simonsbath. ...

History

The church has no known dedication to any saint, however an inscription on one of the three bells suggests it may have been dedicated to

Saint Barbara Saint Barbara ( grc, Ἁγία Βαρβάρα; cop, Ϯⲁⲅⲓⲁ Ⲃⲁⲣⲃⲁⲣⲁ; ; ), known in the Eastern Orthodox Church as the Great Martyr Barbara, was an Early Christianity, early Christian Lebanese and Greek saint and martyr. Acc ...

. The tower dates from the 13th century. The rest of the church was largely rebuilt in 1897 by

Sir Thomas Dyke Acland, 12th Baronet Sir Charles Thomas Dyke Acland, 12th Baronet, Deputy Lieutenant, DL, Justice of Peace, JP (16 July 1842 – 18 February 1919), of Killerton in Devon and of Holnicote in the parish of Selworthy in Somerset, was a large landowner and a United ...

. It is likely that there was a church on the site long before the 13th century. The list of rectors goes back to 1242. Occasional services are held at the church by the parish of

Porlock Porlock is a coastal village in Somerset, England, west of Minehead. At the 2011 census, the village had a population of 1,440. In 2017, Porlock had the highest percentage of elderly population in Britain, with over 40% being of pensionable ag ...

with Stoke Pero which is within the

Diocese of Bath and Wells The Diocese of Bath and Wells is a diocese in the Church of England Province of Canterbury in England. The diocese covers the county of Somerset and a small area of Dorset. The Episcopal seat of the Bishop of Bath and Wells is located in the C ...

Architecture

The stone building has slate roofs. It consists of a three-

bay A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a Gulf (geography), gulf, sea, sound (geography), sound, or bight (geogra ...

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

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. Ove ...

with a porch to the north. The tower is supported by diagonal

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 (s ...

es and has a stair turret. It has no electricity supply and is lit by candles and warmed by fuel-stoves. Inside the church is a

baluster A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its cons ...

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

References

{{reflist Grade II* listed buildings in West Somerset Grade II* listed churches in Somerset

History

Architecture

See also

References