St Michael
Brent Knoll, Somerset
Set on the lower slopes of the isolated hill from which it takes its name, Brent Knoll church stands on an ancient Christian site.
St Mary’s has one of the few spires in Somerset, rising to 43 metres, standing on top of a tall tower of five stages, the delightful niche statues within the west side of the tower survive the Reformation and the Commonwealth more completely than anywhere else in the county: the Virgin and Child, God the Father holding the Crucified Christ, and Christ crowning the Virgin.
The principal glory of St Mary’s, however, is within the interior where its impressive nave ceiling dating from 1637 is described by Simon Jenkins’s ‘England’s Thousand Best Churches’ as ‘a piece of early Gothic revival, using the blackberry thorn as a motif, with ribs connecting panels that are arranged in diamond shapes and in turn connected by three pendants’.
The bench ends can be compared with those of nearby St Michaels Brent Knoll being late 15th century. with coarse tracery and wiry plant forms, also a pelican, a lamb, the Annunciation and the signs of the Evangelists, on one the arms of Glastonbury Abbey and on another the initials of John Selwood, abbot 1456-93. The lectern is also 15th century, being one of 21 wooden, mediaeval lecterns in England, the eagle is portrayed launching off the big heavy baluster six stem. The 17th century pulpit is reached via the wall. The west gallery incorporates part of the rood screen dated 1635 with charming carved columns with vine decoration. The colourful stain glass windows include two dating from 15th century to the east end of the north aisle with further fragments of early glass in the northeast and a sleeping Joseph tired from his journey to Bethlehem can be found in a charming though more recent window on the west side of the chancel.
Outside, in the churchyard can be found the life size effigy of a recumbent merchant probably early 16th century clad in a robe, the head resting on a woolpack, which looks up towards the hill known as Brent Knoll. St Mary’s is also famous for the East Brent Harvest Home being the oldest surviving communal harvest home in Somerset founded by Archdeacon Denison in 1857.