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All Saints, Tellisford, Somerset

Location
(51°18′0″N, 2°17′17″W)
Tellisford
ST 800 557
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Somerset
now Somerset
medieval Wells
now Bath & Wells
  • Robin Downes
  • Robin Downes
24 Aug 2007, 30 Aug 2007

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=136.

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Feature Sets
Description

The tiny manorial hamlet of Tellisford, 6 mi NE of Frome, occupies land on the left bank of the river Frome which forms the boundary with Wiltshire as well as the parish boundary. The church of All Saints is close to the crossing of the road running roughly N-S across a plateau which runs down to the river; the first element of the place-name is related to an old form of ‘table’. The church, which is built of Doulting stone, consists of a W tower, nave with S porch and chancel. The S doorway is stylistically Romanesque in its essential form, but its date is contested (see Comments).

History

DB records two manors in Tellisford in 1086, both held by the Bishop of Coutances.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Comments/Opinions

The fieldworker writes that only the upper part of the door is original, but that the Early English additions are no major disgrace. The EH listing text describes it as 'late Norman arch to door with chevron enrichment, with Early English columns with moulded capitals and head stops'. The heads acting as label stops and the bell capitals do indeed appear stylistically to be later than 1200 (the presence of a chin band on the female head also suggests a date after c.1200) and the sculpture bears traces of serrated claw tooling, which is also indicative of a post-Romanesque date. This suggests that this may be a very late 12thc or early 13thc Transitional era doorway drawing on elements of both Romanesque and early Gothic style.

Bibliography
  1. F. Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications (London, 1899), III, 277.

Historic England listing 1344982

  1. N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: North Somerset and Bristol (Harmondsworth, 1958), 269.

Somerset County Council, Historic Environment Record 21042. Online at http://webapp1.somerset.gov.uk/her/text.asp