Churches of the British Isles

The church was restored in 1874. It consists of red sandstone random rubble masonry, with slate roofs and tiled chancel of the 1800s. It has a two bay aisled nave, north porch, and north and south aisle chapels, with the latter containing an organ and having been extended by one bay to contain a heated vestry. The three-stage crenellated tower has a pyramid slate roof and weather vane, with diagonal buttresses, and a square-headed Tudor arch doorway.

King's Church Quantocks meets inside the Bishops Lydeard village hall, which stands on the eastern side of Mount Street, about eighty metres south of the junction with Hither Mead. The church has no particular history of its own. It is a recent creation, part of the evangelical alliance, although it has already outgrown a previous building. The village hall consists of two small halls and one large hall (of 1939 vintage). The church's Sunday morning service uses all three halls.

The Parish Church of St Mary the Virgin, Bishops Lydeard, is on the west side of the High Street. In the Norman period the village belonged to the bishop of Bath and Wells. A church has existed on this spot since the Saxon period, although the oldest part of the present building is the north arcade, which dates from the end of the thirteenth century. The church is built of red sandstone, with a typically tall Somersetian tower, embellished with Ham Hill stone facings.

It was built about 1450, one of the earliest of a group with the towers of Isle Abbots, Kingston, and Staple Fitzpaine (see links). On the south side, to the east of the porch, there is a 'Rood Turret' which houses the spiral stair up to the top of the rood screen. Inside, the older north arcade is distinctly lower than the younger south arcade. The present form of the interior is decidedly Victorian and later. The chancel was rebuilt on the original foundations about 1860.

Bishops Lydeard Independent Chapel (Congregational) is to the east of the High Street, flanked southwards by a house and then Bartons Close. It is shown on the OS 25-inch map of 1889 (surveyed 1887), perhaps existing for some time before that. It closed in 1969. Greenway Christian Fellowship seems no longer to exist. It possibly met in the Independent chapel or, more likely, in a private house on Greenway, over the other side of the Minehead GWR branch line.

Five photos on this page by P L Kessler, plus one kindly contributed by Michael Day via the 'History Files: Churches of the British Isles' Flickr group. Former Taunton Deane area church names and locations kindly confirmed by South West Heritage Trust. Additional information by Robert Cutts.