Description

ZEALS PORTNELL'S LANE
ST 73 SE
(north side)
6/201 Church of St Martin
6.1.66
GV II *
Anglican parish church. 1842-46 by G.G. Scott, spire added 1876.
Rockfaced limestone with ashlar dressings, tiled roof with bands of
plain and beaver-tailed tiles. West tower with spire, nave,
chancel with north vestry, south porch. Decorated style. Gabled
south porch with moulded pointed chamfered doorway with attached
shafts, diagonal buttresses and coped verge. South side of nave
has one 2-light pointed window to left of porch, two 2-light
pointed windows to right. Chancel has blind priest's doorway with
2-light pointed window either side, east end has diagonal
buttresses and 3-light window, north side has 2-light window,
vestry with pointed north doorway and pair of cusped ogee lancets,
external stack, 2-light east and west windows. North side of nave
has four 2-light windows, all windows with flowing tracery. Square
3-stage west tower has diagonal buttresses, string courses. 2-
light west window, second stage has single-light leaded windows
with cusped tracery and hoodmoulds, pinnacles to corners, offset
octagonal bellstage with 2-light louvred windows, cornice with
gargoyles to recessed spire with gableted windows and moulded
finial. Polygonal stair turret with pointed doorway on south side.
Interior: Porch has inner screen with double pointed doors, inner
door to nave with double planked doors in pointed double chamfered
archway. Nave has 4-bay hammer beam roof with stone corbels, arch-
braced collar trusses to half-bays, tiled floors. Double chamfered
tower arch with attached shafts, screen reset here from chancel
arch. C14-style chancel arch with triple. moulded arch on compound
pilasters. 1920s screen. Chancel has polychrome tiled floor,
moulded pointed archway to organ chamber, chamfered pointed doorway
to vestry to right, stone panelled reredos with carved vine frieze,
trefoiled piscina on south wall. Other fittings; C19 pews and
choir stalls, polygonal stone pulpit with traceried panels,
octagonal stone carved font near south doorway. Monuments include
stone gothic tablet in chancel to William Frederick Grove, founder
of the church and school, died 1847, several brass plaques on nave
walls, east window stained glass in memory of William Chafyn-Grove
of Zeals House (q.v.). Church paid for by the Grove family of
Zeals house, cost £2000, the builder was C. Kirk. A good early
Scott interior.
(N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England, Wiltshire, 1975).

Listing NGR: ST7807831774

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17542932

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

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  Churches: An Architectural Guide (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Introductions)
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