The Church of St Augustine in

West Monkton West Monkton is a village and civil parish in Somerset, England, situated north east of Taunton. The parish includes the Hamlet (place), hamlets of Monkton Heathfield, Bathpool, and Burlinch and the western parts of Coombe and Walford, Somerset ...

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 ...

. The parish church has an tower, of four stories, with no pinnacles or fancy tracery on the windows, giving the tower a slender, austere look compared to the medieval

Somerset towers The Somerset towers are a collection of distinctive, mostly spireless Gothic church towers in the county of Somerset in south west England. Description Newspaper columnist and editor Simon Jenkins has cited the towers as one of England's fi ...

of churches in nearby

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 ...

, for example. Nikolaus Pevsner proposes that St Augustine's tower is older than the surrounding church towers, with a tower arch that may date to 1300 as part of a previous church building. The churchyard includes a

stocks Stocks are feet and hand restraining devices that were used as a form of corporal punishment and public humiliation. The use of stocks is seen as early as Ancient Greece, where they are described as being in use in Solon's law code. The law de ...

and whipping post under a canopy.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:West Monkton, Church of Saint Augustine Church of England church buildings in Taunton Deane 13th-century church buildings in England Grade I listed churches in Somerset Grade I listed buildings in Taunton Deane

See also

References