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St Peter and St Paul, Kilmersdon, Somerset

Location
(51°16′11″N, 2°26′13″W)
Kilmersdon
ST696 524
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Somerset
now Somerset
  • Robin Downes
  • Robin Downes
31 August 2007, 12 September 2007

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=521.

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Description

The village of Kilmersdon lies at the head of a valley leading N through the Mendip Hills to Radstock. It straddles the secondary road between Norton St Philip and Chilcompton, which road climbs to the W of the village up to the ridge along which runs N-S the Fosse Way and, to the NE, around Ammerdown Park up to the ridge along which runs the Frome-Radstock main A362 road.

The church is of Norman origin, although much of the existing fabric dates between the 15th and the 16thc; the church was restored in the 19thc. It consists of a W tower, a nave, a chancel, a N aisle with a chapel, a S organ loft and a vestry. The Romanesque elements comprise the window in the nave S wall (reopened in 1898), the plain narrow S doorway (now into the vestry) visible from the nave, remains of a chancel N window (again visible only from inside), many stretches of a fish-scale frieze outside, part of a corbel table on the nave walls and built-in fragments of carving inside (chancel N wall) as well as outside.

History

In 1066 Domesday Book records the presence of a church. Half a hide of 'Chenemeresdone' was owned by the church of St Chad of Lichfield in 1066; in 1086 the manor it was held directly by King William.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Windows

Exterior Decoration

String courses
Corbel tables, corbels

Loose Sculpture

Bibliography
  1. F. Arnold-Forster Studies in Church Dedications, London 1899, III, 168.

Historic England listing 1307311.

  1. N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol, Harmondsworth 1958, 212.

S. Powys Marks, Church Guide, 1999.

Somerset County Council, Historic Environment Record 21777. Online at http://webapp1.somerset.gov.uk/her/text.asp