West Harptree is a village in the Chew Valley, Somerset, located 15mi SW of Bath. The place-name probably refers to the local herepath which corroborates the sense of relatively easy road communications in the area; the second element of ‘Harptree’ refers to woodland. Indeed, the upper Chew valley yields terrain conducive to settlement and road communication. There are easy routes through the hills W, E and N; routes S over Mendip (to the diocesan centre of Wells, for example) are not so easy but perfectly feasible.

The church and adjacent village centre (with its crossroads, pub and shops) lie at an altitude of about 85m above OD on Dolomitic Conglomerate/Mercia Mudstone (formerly called Keuper Marl). The church of St Mary has a 12thc W tower surmounted by a 13thc spire, nave, chancel, S aisle, S porch, and N vestry. The main structure is 15thc and was heavily restored in 1865. Romanesque elements include the rebuilt N doorway and several corbel tables.

DB records two manors in West Harptree, one belonged to the Bishop of Coutances with Azelin as tenant, the other was held by Walter of Douai with Ralph as tenant. Between 1154 and 1172 an estate at West Harptree was granted by William FitzJohn to the Knights Templar (Faith, 2009).

Chancel corbel table

To begin with, when one examines the chancel corbel-tables, one might think there is here a similar alternation between human/animal heads and non-figurative designs to that found at nearby Compton Martin (1.5kms W), but further examination reveals a low proportion of heads overall. Naturally, many of the corbels are eroded and/or filthy (especially on the tower) and there have apparently been some replacements, at least of the non-figurative examples.

Whereas at Compton Martin the end-stops of the corbel-tabels were chevron assemblies (to judge from the E end of the nave N table), at West Harptree they went in for an idea simpler but nonetheless striking: dependent from the coping is a large geometrically moulded block with three large pellets nestling in the bottom cavetto. Briefly, the moulding is as follows (from bottom upwards): a roll in high relief, then the cavetto, then what would have been a moulding of triangular section had not it been cut to form a shallow cavetto; the uppermost part of the block fits flush with the end of the corbel-table.