Christ Church, Long Load
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Christ Church is a former
Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...
church in
Long Load Long Load is a village and parish in Somerset, England, situated on the River Yeo south of Somerton. The village has a population of 332. History Long Load was recorded as ‘Lade’ in the late 12th century and ‘La Lade’ in 1285 meaning ...
,
Somerset Somerset ( , ), Archaism, archaically Somersetshire ( , , ) is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county in South West England. It is bordered by the Bristol Channel, Gloucestershire, and Bristol to the north, Wiltshire to the east ...
, England. Designed by Charles Edmund Giles, it was built in 1854–1856 on the site of an earlier chapel and closed in 2011. The former church is now a private residence and a
Grade II listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building is a structure of particular architectural or historic interest deserving of special protection. Such buildings are placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, H ...
.


History

A small chapel serving Long Load is known to have existed as early as 1418. By 1791, the building had become "ruinous" and was demolished and replaced in 1796 with a new building smaller than its predecessor. By the middle of the 19th-century, the 1796 chapel had also fallen into a dilapidated state. A scheme was devised, and an appeal was launched to raise £2,500 for the construction of a new church, a schoolroom and a parsonage. By April 1855, approximately £1,700 had been raised. The schoolroom was erected at a cost of £350 and was granted a license to be used as a place of worship until the new church was completed. The plans for the new church were drawn up by C. E. Giles of
Taunton Taunton () is the county town of Somerset, England. It is a market town and has a Minster (church), minster church. Its population in 2011 was 64,621. Its thousand-year history includes a 10th-century priory, monastic foundation, owned by the ...
, with accommodation for 279 persons. Construction commenced in 1854 and the church was consecrated by the
Bishop of Bath and Wells The Bishop of Bath and Wells heads the Church of England Diocese of Bath and Wells in the Province of Canterbury in England. The present diocese covers the overwhelmingly greater part of the (ceremonial) county of Somerset and a small area of D ...
, the Right Rev. Robert Eden, on 11 September 1856. The consecration was originally set for 4 September, but had to be postponed when the Bishop's wife fell ill. The estimated cost of the church was £1,300. Long Load was made its own ecclesiastical parish in 1867. Christ Church closed as a place of worship in 2011. It was subsequently sold and planning permission was granted in 2014 to convert the building into a three-bedroom residence. Long Load and Long Sutton formed a new parish in 2017.


Architecture

Christ Church is built of
Blue Lias The Blue Lias is a formation (stratigraphy), 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 ...
stone with dressings in
Hamstone Hamstone is 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 which weather dif ...
. The Blue Lias was gifted by the
Earl of Burlington Earl of Burlington is a title that has been created twice, the first time in the Peerage of England in 1664 and the second in the Peerage of the United Kingdom in 1831. Since 1858, Earl of Burlington has been a courtesy title used by the duk ...
and supplied from his quarries at Long Sutton. The church was made up of a five-
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'', ''sea'', ''sound'', or ''bight''. A ''cove'' is a small, ci ...
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 ...
, two-bay
chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the Choir (architecture), choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may termi ...
, south porch, north-east vestry and spirelet with bell. A Jacobean pulpit was retained from the older chapel.


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Long Load, Christ Church Former churches in Somerset Church of England church buildings in South Somerset Grade II listed churches in Somerset Churches completed in 1856