Church of St Mary, Witham Friary

The Church of St Mary in Witham Friary, Somerset, England, dates from around 1200 and it has been designated as a Grade I listed building.[1]

Church of St Mary
Location within Somerset
General information
Town or cityWitham Friary
CountryEngland
Coordinates51.1686°N 2.3675°W / 51.1686; -2.3675
Completedc. 1200

The church was originally part of the priory which gave the village its name.[2] The Witham Charterhouse, a Carthusian Priory founded in 1182 by Henry II,[3] which had peripheral settlements including one at Charterhouse and possibly another at Green Ore.[4] It is reputed to be the first Carthusian house in England.[5] One of only nine Carthusian Houses, the priory did not survive the Dissolution of the Monasteries.[6] At the dissolution it was worth £227; the equivalent of £52,000 today (2006).[7]

Although the original building dates from around 1200 it was altered in a transitional style in 1828, and then rebuilt and extended 1875 by William White in "Muscular Gothic" style. It has a three-bay nave and continuous one bay apsidal chancel, built of local limestone rubble, supported on each side by four massive flying buttresses. The plastered interior is entered through a Norman style doorway. Inside the church is a scraped octagonal font dating from around 1450. The Jacobean pulpit contains medieval work and there is a royal arms of 1660 at the west end. The stained glass windows contain fragments of medieval glass, with those in the south being made by Sir Ninian Comper.

See also
  • List of Grade I listed buildings in Mendip
  • List of towers in Somerset

References
  1. "Church of St Mary". historicengland.org.uk. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
  2. "Local History - Witham Friary". Somerset Larders.com. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
  3. "Witham Friary Somerset". A Vision of Britain through time. Retrieved 15 December 2015.
  4. Reid, Robert Douglas (1979). Some buildings of Mendip. The Mendip Society. ISBN 0-905459-16-4.
  5. "Witham-Friary (St Mary)". British History Online. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
  6. "Land adjoining Gramarye, Witham Friary, Somerset" (PDF). Context One Archaeological Services. Archived from the original (PDF) on 20 August 2007. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
  7. "Purchasing Power of British Pounds from 1264 to 2006". Measuring worth.com. Archived from the original on 27 September 2007. Retrieved 2 September 2007.
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