Westonzoyland, Somerset

I was looking forward to visiting St Mary, open, but we arrived shortly after it had closed for the day however a keyholder is also listed, not least because I had researched it when planning the trip and, for once, agreed with Jenkins' three star rating. The other reason was rather more gruesome, as Jenkins reports "the church enjoyed a brief but grim fame as a prison after the battle of Sedgemoor...After the rout of the rebels, some 500 survivors, many of them wounded and dying, were herded into the church to spend a ghastly night sleeping on the floor and benches. Outside, gibbets were erected for their hanging the following day. The church had to be fumigated and perfumed afterwards".

The battle of Weston, later known as Sedgemoor, between the armies of the king and of the duke of Monmouth, was fought on 6 July 1685 on the moors north of the village. It lasted barely an hour but contemporaries gave the number of dead between 727 and 2,700, the former more likely. It was said that most of the 27 fatalities from the king's army were buried in the churchyard, one with a canon ball in his chest, or on the battlefield, and the church was used to contain the prisoners, some of whom were hanged in the village. The parish bought frankincense, pitch, and resin to clean and disinfect the building afterwards and paid for ringing for a day of thanksgiving then and a year later when the king was in the parish. Only eight local men were accused of involvement, one of whom died while being transported to Barbados. [source British History Online].

ST MARY. Lias and Ham Hill dressings. The tower is the tallest in Zoyland (just over 100 ft), the S front a proper facade. The tower is in four stages with set-back buttresses diagonally connected across the angle of the tower. Plain doorway and four-light W window. On the N and S sides this stage is entirely bare. Towards the nave it has a tall panelled arch opening into a fan-vault. Next stage two-light windows with niches l. and r. Next stage the same again, but the windows with Somerset tracery. Then the bell-openings. Three in a row, each of two lights, with transom. Only the middle one is a real opening; the others are blank. Somerset tracery. Battlements with quatrefoils, square pinnacles, and also intermediate pinnacles. The S facade has an embattled aisle, embattled clerestory, two-storeyed embattled porch (roof on angel-busts), and embattled S chapel. The S window of this is flanked by niches and has some unusual details in its tracery. On one of the buttresses are the initials of Richard Bere, abbot of Glastonbury (1493-1524). The chancel is lower, un-embattled and a good deal earlier; for it has on the N and S sides two-light Dec windows, with rere-arches on shafts inside. The N side otherwise is similar to the S but plainer. N vestry with big buttress and small lancet window. On entering the church the nave roof is a sudden thrill. It is one of the finest of Somerset and typical of at least part of the county. The roof is of moderate pitch, with big tie-beams on short arched braces which rest on angel busts. On the tie-beams stand, seemingly carried by big angels, the kingposts. To the l. and r. of the kingposts all is close tracery in two tiers. The sub-principals are decorated by a kind of pendant kingposts connected by thin braces to the beams. Plenty of bosses. Nave arcades of six bays; the piers of the standard four-hollows section. The clerestory windows are of three lights and have four-centred arches. The tower arch takes the whole height of the nave. Fine roof in the S transept also, panelled, on angels, with many bosses. Another angel supports the panelled W arch into the chapel. At this junction it is clear (grey stone v. Ham Hill, two-centred v. four-centred arch) that the nave arcade is earlier than the S transept. - FONT. Perp, octagonal, of an unusual shape, stem and bowl of about the same size, and as decoration just a number of bold mouldings to divide stem and bowl into layers. - ROOD SCREEN. 1933-9, but instructive; for it has been given a loft and a rood. - BENCHES. Plain, square-headed, with large tracery motifs. Some poppy-heads. On one end the initials of Richard Bere. - STAINED GLASS. Original bits in the chancel S. Again on one fragment the same initials. – SOUTH DOOR. Original, traceried. - PLATE. Chalice 1573; Flagon 1612; Paten 1707. - MONUMENT. Effigy of a Priest, praying, c. 1300; N chapel.

Weston-Zoyland. Its ancient church in the moors has the memory of a ghastly summer’s night in 1685, the aftermath of Sedgemoor, when Monmouth’s rebels met their end. Here, near the very field of battle, was the headquarters of the Royalist Earl of Feversham, the general who, Macaulay tells us, got up too late for the last great battle in England. He was still tying his cravat when the fighting began, and the brunt of leadership was left to the future Duke of Marlborough.

We think of it all as we come towards the church, drawn to it from afar by the beautiful 15th century tower rising 125 feet among regiments of willows. Its belfry windows are lovely with stone panelling, each central one pierced to give out the sound of the bells. One of these bells is mediaeval and has a Latin prayer to St Anne. Canopied niches decorate the tower outside, and inside it has a panelled arch and a lovely fan-vaulted roof. There are two delightful canopied niches and a gargoyle like a boar outside one of the transepts, and inside the other lies a stone priest of 650 years ago. The vestry is 13th century, the chancel and the banded font are 14th, bearing in several places the initials of Richard Bere, the great builder-abbot of Glastonbury. Richly carved in oak is the Elizabethan altar table. In our own time the church has been finely restored, and a chancel screen with a roodloft and rood, reached by a turreted stairway, has been built. The old south door has been recovered from a cow-stall, and restored to its ancient dignity.

The 15th century roofs of the nave and aisles are masterpieces. Those of the aisles have flowers, and the nave roof is a magnificent sight with its traceried beams, its rich pendants, its lovely bosses, and the angels of peace which would look down on the sufferings of 500 of Monmouth’s men locked up in the church, all badly wounded, some to die in the night. On this group of 15th century benches the prisoners lay through that ghastly night. A fearful scene it was, with groans and cries of despair rising from the stricken men, while their comrades outside were being forced to build gibbets and collect chains for the hanging. The dead were buried where they lay, by the stream known as the Bussex Rhine, and a layer of sand still reveals their grave to the digger, for the bodies were covered with sand from a heap on Bussex Farm.

In a chest, new at the time of Sedgemoor, the church has a register with an entry describing the battle. Other entries tell how money was spent on frankincense to make God’s house sweet  when the prisoners had gone, how the bells rang when Monmouth himself was taken, and how they rang out a year later to welcome James riding from Bristol to see the battlefield. The church was restored just before the last war, with the help of contributions from those army regiments that took part in the Battle of Sedgemoor.

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