Church of St Andrew & St Mary, Pitminster

The Church of St Andrew & St Mary stands in the village of Pitminster, Somerset, on ground once occupied by a Saxon church. Built around 1300, it was enlarged in the 15th century and then reshaped by George Gilbert Scott during a Victorian restoration in 1869. Further repairs were carried out in 1937 and 1979, keeping the building in good order. The walls are made from local rubble stone dressed with ham stone, and the roof is mainly slate with lead on the spire and porch. Inside, the tower rises at the west end in two square stages topped by an octagonal lead-covered spire. The church is notable for its surviving medieval features and later additions. A 15th-century octagonal font shows quatrefoil panels with carvings of St George and St James, while a 17th-century pulpit with a sounding board from Frome’s Bluecoat school remains in place. Medieval stained glass survives in the lady chapel’s north window, and three generations of the Colles family are remembered in effigy tombs. The rood stair turrets beside the chancel arch recall the former rood screen removed after the Reformation. Visitors enter through a 19th-century gabled porch with diagonal buttresses and a moulded doorway. Inside, the nave is lit by clerestory windows added by Scott, and the lady chapel holds glass by Keape dated 1894 and 1904. The brass lectern commemorates William Amasa Copp, and linenfold panelling can be seen near the organ. The church’s interior blends these historic elements with later furnishings, offering a quiet place to see craftsmanship from several centuries.