We use cookies to improve your experience, some are essential for the operation of this site.

St Michael, Enmore, Somerset

Location
(51°6′39″N, 3°5′13″W)
Enmore
ST 240 352
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Somerset
now Somerset
  • Robin Downes
25 June 2004

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=5307.

Find out how to cite the CRSBI website here.

Feature Sets
Description

Enmore is a village nearly 4 miles SW of Bridgwater on the NE flank of the Quantock Hills. It consists of a few houses, two pubs, a golf course and the church and Enmore Castle, now a building of the 18thc and later, scattered around a network of minor roads. The church and castle stand at the N edge of the village.

St Michael’s consists of a nave with a S porch and a 3-bay N aisle, a chancel and a 3-storey W tower with diagonal buttresses and an embattled parapet. The earliest feature is the late-12th S doorway, described below. The chancel is 13thc. and the tower 15thc, as are many of the windows. Construction is of random rubble with freestone dressings. The church was restored by B Ferrey in 1873.

History

Enmore was held by Geoffrey from Roger de Courcelles in 1086, and by Algar before the Conquest. It was assessed at 1 hide and there were 88 acres of woodland. It was held of Compton Dundon manor (as was Kilve) until 1541, and the tenant in residence was Baldwin Malet in 1166, remaining in the same family until 1681. The advowson was with Baldwin Malet, Lord of Enmore in 1329 and it remained in the hands of the Lord of the Manor until 1833. The dedication to St Michael is recorded by 1348.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Comments/Opinions

The S doorway is both heavy and startlingly ornate, and is carved with a virtuosic degree of precision. The capitals are also noteworthy in their elegant variation on the trumpet scallop format. Pevsner dates the doorway c.1185, which seems logical; it could not be much later or much earlier.

Bibliography

Somerset County Council, Somerset County Council, Historic Environment Record 13541.

EH, English Heritage Listed Building 269275.

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: South and West Somerset, Harmondsworth 1958, 166.

VCH, Victoria County History: Somerset, VI, London 1992, 43-44.