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All Saints, Ashcott, Somerset

Location
(51°7′49″N, 2°48′21″W)
Ashcott
ST 437 371
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Somerset
now Somerset
  • Robin Downes
10 November 2005

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Feature Sets
Description

Ashcott is 4 miles W of Glastonbury on the higher ground to the N of King’s Sedge Moor. The village stands on the N side of the Roman road that runs from Street to Puriton, and the church is in the centre. It consists of a nave with a S porch, chancel and W tower, all rebuilt in the 15thc. The tower bears the initials of John Selwood, abbot of Glastonbury (1456-92). The church was restored, and the nave widened to the N in 1831, apparently to designs by J. Baron Beard of Taunton. There was another restoration by Edward Dampier of Colchester in 1888. The font is the only item recorded here.

History

An estate here was held of Glastonbury by two thegns in 1066, and by Walter of Douai in 1086. Walter’s sub-tenancy had passed to Baldwin of Ascott by the early 12thc, but his son Ywain was disinherited and the abbey resumed the fee, holding it in 1189.

The church was originally a chapelry of Shapwick, and was so described in 1168 in a list of the churches and chapels of Glastonbury abbey. In 1269 the vicar of Shapwick moved his residence to Ashcott, and thereafter the living was often described as a vicarage. It continued to be attached to Shapwick after the Dissolution, and Burtle was added to the benefice in 1974.

Features

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

NMR describes the font as Norman, it is not mentioned by Pevsner.

Bibliography

Somerset County Council, Historic Environment Record 13498.

EH, English Heritage Listed Building 269237.

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: South and West Somerset, Harmondsworth 1958, 77.

VCH, Victoria County History: Somerset, VIII, London 2004, 13-25.