Church of St Dunstan
Brown stone building with square tower at the left hand end. In the foreground is a grass area with gravestones.
St Dunstan's Church, Baltonsborough is located in Somerset
St Dunstan's Church, Baltonsborough
Location within Somerset
General information
Town or cityBaltonsborough
CountryEngland
Coordinates51°06′38″N 2°39′22″W / 51.1105°N 2.6562°W / 51.1105; -2.6562
Completed15th century

The Church of St Dunstan in Baltonsborough, Somerset, England, was built in the 15th century. It has been designated as a Grade I listed building.[1]

The dedication honours St Dunstan who was born in Baltonsborough in 909, and eventually became Archbishop of Canterbury and an important monastic reformer of the Anglo-Saxon period.[2] Legends attached to Dunstan portray him nailing a horseshoe onto the devil, earning him a place as a patron saint of blacksmiths.

There is a four bay nave and two bay chancel.[1] The nave is particularly wide and has caused stress in the roof and an outward lean in the north wall.[3] The church's simple Somerset tower is topped by an elaborate ironwork weather vane crafted by the local blacksmith in the 19th century.[4] The interior includes a 15th-century font.[1] The screen was designed by Frederick Bligh Bond.[3]

The churchyard contains war graves of a Somerset Light Infantry soldier of World War I and a Royal Navy sailor of World War II.[5]

The parish is part of the benefice of Baltonsborough with Butleigh, West Bradley and West Pennard, which is known as the Brue Benefice.[6][7]

One former vicar of the church was Edward Mellish who was awarded the Victoria Cross in World War I.[8]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 3 "Church of St Dunstan". historicengland.org.uk. English Heritage. Retrieved 16 May 2009.
  2. Dunning, Robert (1983). A History of Somerset. Chichester: Phillimore & Co. ISBN 0-85033-461-6.
  3. 1 2 Dunning, Robert (1996). Fifty Somerset Churches. Somerset Books. pp. 18–21. ISBN 978-0861833092.
  4. Pevsner, Nikolaus (2003). The Buildings of England, South and West Somerset. Yale University Press. ISBN 0-300-09644-5.
  5. CWGC Cemetery report, detail from casualty record.
  6. "St Dunstan, Baltonsborough". Church of England. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  7. "St. Dunstan's Church". Mendip Council. Archived from the original on 4 September 2012. Retrieved 12 September 2011.
  8. "Licence of the Rev. Edward Noel Mellish VC. to Perpetual Curacy of Baltonsborough". National Archives. Retrieved 23 January 2016.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.