St Leonard, Butleigh

St Leonard’s is a Grade II* parish church on the High Street in Butleigh, Somerset, in the Diocese of Bath and Wells and the benefice of Baltonsborough with Butleigh, West Bradley and West Pennard.

Overview

Historic England records an Anglican parish church of the fourteenth century, much restored and extended in the mid nineteenth century by J. C. Buckler. The fabric is coursed and squared lias rubble with some ashlar and freestone dressings, stone-tiled roofs (some clay tiles), moulded stone eaves cornices and coped verges with finials. The plan is a nave with south porch, north aisle, north chapel, crossing tower with north and south transept chapels (the north now a vestry), and chancel. The style is predominantly Decorated with some Perpendicular features; the nineteenth-century work is in a Decorated manner. Wikipedia notes that Glastonbury Abbey held the church at Domesday and that an Anglo-Saxon church may survive in part of a doorway.

Buckler’s work for George Neville-Grenville included a new hammerbeam roof. The listing describes an embattled tower, a three-bay nave, a three-bay north aisle of about 1859 with a west rose window, transepts of 1851, and a two-bay chancel. The interior is plastered, with encaustic tile and flag floors. Roofs include a hammerbeam to the nave, a wagon to the north chapel and a painted and gilded wagon to the chancel. Fittings include a fifteenth-century octagonal font with Trinity emblems on the bowl and a Jacobean altar table. Monuments include a memorial by Lucius Gahagan, with a poem by Robert Southey, to the seafaring Hood brothers, sons of a vicar of Butleigh.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1058773
• Wikipedia: Church of St Leonard, Butleigh