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St Bartholomew, East Lyng, Somerset

Location
(50°54′42″N, 2°57′0″W)
East Lyng
ST 333 129
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Somerset
now Somerset
  • Robin Downes
24 March 2005

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Feature Sets
Description

East Lyng is in the Sedgemoor district of Somerset, 7½ miles NE of Taunton and 5½ miles SE of Bridgwater. The three Lyngs (East Lyng, West Lyng and Lyng) lie along a ridge that extends eastwards like a tongue from the Quantock hills into the low drained moorland of the river Parrett floodplain.East Lyng is the largest of the three, and the only one with a church. The settlement is clustered around a junction on the A361 running E from Taunton towards Street and Glastonbury. The church stands in the centre of the village, alongside the main road.

The church dates from the 14thc and 15thc and consists of a 3-bay nave with N and S porches, a 2-bay chancel and a W tower. It is built of coursed and squared blue lias rubble with freestone dressings, and was restored in the mid-19thc. The only Romanesque feature is the plain font.

History

The ancient parish of Lyng included a Saxon burh, now occupied by the village of East Lyng, and the Isle of Athelney to the E. Athelney abbey was founded by King Alfred in 888, and the rest of Lyng was added to the abbey’s holdings by Athelstan in 937. Lyng church was described as a chapel in 1291, when it was presumably an outpost of the abbey church, staffed by the monks. A vicarage was ordained here by 1348, and the advowson remained with the abbey until the Dissolution. In 1086 Lyng was held by the Benedictine abbey of Athelney, and it consisted then of just 1 hide of ploughland, 12 acres of meadow and 50 acres of woodland.

A weekly market was granted by Henry III to the prior and convent of Athelney, to be held at Lyng manor, in 1267, but this had ceased to operate by 1349. An annual fair was recorded in 1349-50, and this had lapsed by 1399.

Features

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

None recorded.

Bibliography

English Listed Building 269544

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: South and West Somerset. Harmondsworth 1958, 227.

Somerset County Council, Historic Environment Records 10548, 13821.

Victoria County History: Somerset, II (1911), 99-103 (on Athelney).

Victoria County History: Somerset, VI (1992), 53-64.