St. Christopher, Lympsham, Somerset

Description

The church of St. Christopher is an ancient building of stone in the Perpendicular style, consisting of chancel, nave of four bays, north aisle, south porch and a fine western tower with a low arcaded parapet, altered in the 19th century, and bold double buttresses, terminating in four massive pinnacles, and containing a clock and 6 bells: on the south window is the date 1633, a record of repairs made at that date: the north aisle, which has a finely carved and moulded roof and a good parapet with pinnacles, appears to have originally been a chapel connected with the adjoining grange, probably used by the monks of Glastonbury as a summer residence; the ceiling is a fine example of Perpendicular timber work: on the north side is a walled-up entrance and a tabernacled niche, and at the east end is a piscina: the nave roof is coved and enriched with good bosses, and below the wall plate are six grotesque heads, perhaps belonging to an earlier roof: the east window is filled with modern stained glass, the west window and the heads of all the others are filled with stained glass, and there is also a memorial east window in the north aisle: the font, a work of the 12th century, with zigzag ornament, is a relic of an earlier church. The church was reseated in carved oak in 1894 at a cost of £965, and now affords sittings for 340 persons.

Church Records

The register of baptisms and burials dates from the year 1737; marriages, 1773; an earlier register of marriages is said to have been in existence till 1780.