MSO6693 - St Martin's Church and Churchyard, Elworthy (Building)

[ST 0829 3496] St. Martin's Church (NAT). [1] St Martin's church is a small church with a low unbuttressed west tower with battlements. Probably 13th Century. [2] In normal use. [3] ST03SE ELWORTHY CP 8/4 Church of St Martin 22.5.69 GV II* Parish church, now redundant. C13 tower, porch and nave roof late C15, chancel rebuilt 1695 and again in 1846 when nave restored and organ chamber added, church declared redundant 1979. Red sandstone random rubble, Ham stone dressings, slate roofs, coped verges. West tower, 3 bay nave, South organ chamber, chancel and rood loft stair projection. Lower 2-stage crenellated tower, unbuttressed, 2 square bell openings, lancet, entrance at first floor level by flight of steps on South side, wooden chamfered 4 centred arch doorcase with renewed studded plank door. Buttressed, single storey, gabled porch, moulded arched entrance, split at apex and subsiding, chamfered arched inner doorway, C19 door; lancet to right in nave, south front two 2-light windows, another 2-light to organ chamber projection, 3-light East window, chancel with diagonal buttresses, rood loft stair projection at junction with nave North face, 2-light window to left or porch. Interior: rendered. C19 pointed chancel arch, similar to organ chamber, unmoulded round tower arch. C19 barrel vault to chancel, late C15 ribbed plaster barrel vault to nave. Mid C17 alabaster font, Jacobean pulpit, late C17 turned baluster altar rails and table, some C17 stained glass in window, C19 screen incorporating frieze: "O lord Prepare Our Arts to Praye Anno 1632" and some C17 tracery. C16 bent ends attached to choir stalls. Slate tomb slab in nave to Mary Green died January 19th, 1718/19, (Photographs in NMR). [4] A church was mentioned in 1233. The living was a rectory until 1969 when it became a chapelry within the parish of Monksilver. In 1979 the church was declared redundant and vested in the Redundant Churches Fund. The church was dedicated by 1531. The nave and tower date from the C13 and the porch and the nave roof from the C15. The chancel was rebuilt in 1695 and again in 1846 when the nave was also restored and reseated. [5] Graveyard in use since at least medieval times. [6] An addition to one the gravemarkers with the churchyard records James Elliot who was killed in 1916 in WWI and is buried in France. The gravemarker is in the form of a granite cross. The bell cage was renewed, the bells rehung and renovations undertaken in 1921 as a thanksoffering for the end of WWI. There is an associated plaque. Another plaque commemorates Walter Sangar who died in 1917 in WWI. [7] The building was visited in June 2013 as part of the rapid condition survey of Exmoor's Listed Buildings 2012-13. It received a BAR score of 4. [8]