St Mary's Church, Portbury

St Mary's Church
Square stone tower behind churchyard with cross and gravestones.
Location within Somerset
General information
Town or city Portbury
Country England
Coordinates 51°28′32″N 2°43′02″W / 51.4756°N 2.7173°W / 51.4756; -2.7173
Completed 12th century

St Mary's Church in Portbury, Somerset, England, is an Anglican parish church close to the M5 motorway. It is a Grade I listed building.[1]

It dates from the 12th century, with alteration and extension in the 13th and restoration between 1870 and 1875. It has a Norman doorway and grand fifteenth century porch.[1] There is a Berkeley Chantry chapel with early Berkeley family burials dating from around 1190.[2]

There are a number of elderly yew trees in the surrounding graveyard with one reputed to be 900 years old.[3] The Church was extensively renovated in the 19th Century when a cast iron heating system was installed.[4]

The parish is part of the benefice of Pill, Portbury and Easton in Gordano within the Portishead deanery.[5]

The tower houses six bells hung in the English style of change ringing, the heaviest being the tenor at 21cwt or in modern terms 1 ton, in 2012 work was carried out in the tower to reinstate the floor between the ringers and the bells. Like most bells in the area, they were locally cast by local founders. Many of the bells in this tower were made by the Bilbie family of Chew Stoke.[6]


In 2013 the church was added to the Heritage at Risk register because of water damage causing damage to the plaster ceiling.[7]

See also

References

  1. 1 2 "St. Mary's Church". Images of England. English Heritage. Retrieved 8 March 2009.
  2. ↑ Collinson, John (1791). The History and Antiquities of the County of Somerset. Cruttevell. p. 281.
  3. ↑ "St Mary the Virgin, Portbury". Heritage Group Website of the CIBSE. Retrieved 8 April 2009.
  4. ↑ "Church history". Pill, Portbury and Easton in Gordano churches. Retrieved 8 April 2009.
  5. ↑ "The Blessed Virgin Mary, Portbury". Church of England. Retrieved 5 November 2011.
  6. ↑ Moore, J. Rice, R. and Hucker, E. (1995). Bilbie and the Chew Valley clockmakers  : the story of the renowned family of Somerset bellfounder-clockmakers /Clockmakers. The authors. ISBN 0-9526702-0-8.
  7. ↑ "St Mary's Church, Church Lane, Portbury — North Somerset (UA)". Heritage at Risk. English Heritage. Retrieved 14 October 2013.
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