Churches of the British Isles

The identity of the architect for the rebuild is unknown, while the builders were How of Brompton Regis. The chancel was added by Rev John Bere, partially at his own expense. Choir stalls were added and the chancel floor was relaid in 1933. Minor restoration work was carried out in 1972 when electricity was installed. The structure is random rubble local stone, flat bedded in the tower, with Ham stone dressings, slate roofs, coped verges, and decorative ridge tiles.

The Church of St James Upton, Rainsbury, sits on the southern side of the B3190, around three hundred metres to the east of the Hansetown Road turning. This church replaced the isolated and dilapidated fourteenth century Old St James Church of Upton Farm (see below). It was built in 1867 (some sources prefer a less concrete date of 'about 1870'), a Victorian building which was required so that local residents could attend services without a long trek.

The building is constructed with squared and irregularly coursed local stone, with Bath stone dressings, a slate roof, decorative ridge tiles, and a corrugated iron roof over the vestry. It has a three-bay nave, south porch, the north-east vestry, and a chancel. There are tablets which commemorate the Fergusson Davie family, presumably as they were instrumental in erecting this replacement building. The east window is dated to 1873 while the bell tower contains a ring of three.

Ebenezer Chapel (Bible Christians), Whitley, is on the north side of the B3190, about fifty metres west of Whitley Cottages on the opposite side of the road. Methodism faced opposition in this area, with workers being turned out of jobs and preachers in danger of being stoned. The chapel was built in more settled times, in 1878, but later converted to be Wesleyan. Following the 1932 Methodist union it became Whitley Methodist Church but is now a private residence.

Old St James Church is on the east flank of Upton Farm, close to the corner of Eastmoor Lane which heads east to Upton itself. The tower is all that remains of this church of the 1300s in Exmoor National Park. The rubble stone body was pulled down after 1861 when the new St James was built in Upton (above), as the community had shifted over the centuries. That late medieval church itself partially rebuilt or replaced an early medieval one, but details are unavailable.

Photos on this page kindly contributed by Keltek Trust and Huw Thomas (two), all via the 'History Files: Churches of the British Isles' Flickr group, and three photos copyright © Rabbi WP Thinrod, Roger Cornfoot, and Derek Harper via Geograph, reused under a cc licence. Additional information from Annual Report of the Somerset Congregational Union and of the Evangelist Society presented at the One-Hundredth Anniversary (1996), from Early Methodism in West Somerset and the Lorna Doone country, W Symons (1895), from Kelly's Directory of Devon 1875, from Kelly's Directory of Somerset 1906, from Report of the Royal Commission on Children, Young Persons, and Women in Agriculture (Parliamentary Papers, 1868-1869, 4202, xiii, p 454).