The

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

Church of St Andrew in

Congresbury Congresbury is a village and civil parish on the northwestern slopes of the Mendip Hills in North Somerset, England, which in 2011 had a population of 3,497. It lies on the A370 between Junction 21 of the M5 and Bristol Airport, south of Br ...

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 dates from the 13th century and has been designated as a Grade I

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, Hi ...

. Congresbury is named after St Congar, who is said to have performed three miracles in the area. The second part of the name is thought to come from ''burh'' meaning fortified place. The archaeologist

Mick Aston Michael Antony Aston (1 July 1946 – 24 June 2013) was an English archaeologist who specialised in Early Medieval landscape archaeology. Over the course of his career, he lectured at both the University of Bristol and University of Oxford and ...

identified an

Anglo-Saxon The Anglo-Saxons, in some contexts simply called Saxons or the English, were a Cultural identity, cultural group who spoke Old English and inhabited much of what is now England and south-eastern Scotland in the Early Middle Ages. They traced t ...

sculpture of St Congar which is believed to have come from St Andrews Church, and which is now in the

Museum of Somerset The Museum of Somerset is located in the 12th-century great hall of Taunton Castle, in Taunton in the county of Somerset, England. The museum is run by South West Heritage Trust, an independent charity, and includes objects initially collecte ...

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 ...

. The present church was consecrated by Bishop

Jocelin of Wells Jocelin of Wells (died 19 November 1242) was a medieval Bishop of Bath (and Glastonbury). He was the brother of Hugh de Wells, who became Bishop of Lincoln. Jocelin became a canon of Wells Cathedral before 1200, and was elected bishop in 1 ...

on 11 July 1215. The church was remodelled in the 15th century, in a

Perpendicular In geometry, two geometric objects are perpendicular if they intersect at right angles, i.e. at an angle of 90 degrees or π/2 radians. The condition of perpendicularity may be represented graphically using the '' perpendicular symbol'', � ...

style; further restorations followed in 1825, 1856 and 1950–2. The

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 ...

includes pillars with decorated stone

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal keyed into and projecting from a wall to carry a wikt:superincumbent, bearing weight, a type of bracket (architecture), bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in t ...

s supporting the wooden roof timbers and carved bosses. The organ, which was rebuilt in 1967 is in the

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 ...

. The Merle chapel was formerly known as the Chapel of St Congar. The

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a ''typeface'', defined as the set of fonts that share an overall design. For instance, the typeface Bauer Bodoni (shown in the figure) includes fonts " Roman" (or "regul ...

is Norman. The tower is surmounted by a spire which rises to . The Tower contains a heavy ring of 8 Bells, the Tenor (the biggest bell) weighing 3812 lb or 1729 kg and it strikes the note of C. The oldest bells date back to 1606 and were cast by George Purdue. The parish is part of the

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 ...

of Congresbury with Puxton and Hewish St Ann within the deanery of Locking.

References

External links

St Andrew's Church web site
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Andrews Church, Congresbury

Congresbury, Church of St Andrew Congresbury, Church of St Andrew Buildings and structures completed in 1215 Churches completed in the 1210s 13th-century church buildings in England

See also

References

External links