St Andrew's Church, Chew Stoke

St Andrew’s Church stands on the edge of Chew Stoke, a Somerset village beside Chew Valley Lake. Parts of the building date from the 15th century, and the tower still rises in its original perpendicular style. The church is built of local red sandstone and limestone under lead roofs, with a nave, aisles, chancel and chapel inside. A three-stage tower with diagonal buttresses supports a crown and spirelet above the stair turret. The church was listed at Grade II* in 1960 for its historic fabric. Inside, Victorian restoration left a square font and pulpit, now whitewashed, and 156 angels carved in wood and stone. A bronze plaque records eleven villagers lost in the First World War and six in the Second. The east window tells the life of Saint Andrew, while a stained glass panel shows a saint on a snake beneath war flags. A 16th-century chest once held alms for the poor, kept by three key-holders as Queen Elizabeth I decreed. The churchyard holds the base of a 14th-century cross moved here when the lake flooded Moreton. A Grade II listed gate lamp marks Queen Victoria’s Jubilee, and a Commonwealth war grave lies among the graves. Nearby, the old rectory built in 1529 carries the arms of the St Loe family, once the area’s chief landowners.