©Carol Moule

 THE CHURCH

by Ian L. Durham M.B.E.

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 The main Early English evidence is the three rather squat hexagonal pillars between the nave and the south aisle, also the window (of which more later) to the west of the south entrance, above which on the inside are the arms (three Cornish choughs) of Bishop Cornish. This gentleman was Vicar of Chew from 1505 to 1513, was Suffragan Bishop of Wells and also of Exeter, and held the sinecure office of Bishop of Tenos in partibus infidelium (Tenos being an island in the Greek archipelago, an area which was at that time lost to the Roman church). Otherwise the church is generally in the Perpendicular style; the nave and the north aisle are good examples.

The north aisle was the last part of the church to be built, apart from the vestry which was added in 1824. The tower must have been started, if not completed, before the wall of the new aisle was constructed around the base of the tower. Probably the aisle was being built in 1447 when Sir John St. Lo died and left £16 towards its cost.

So the church was practically completed by 1500, a large building reflecting both the prosperity of the woollen industry and the church's local importance.
It was almost certainly a minster church, a centre for a group of preachers who served the local communities, perhaps even before their own churches were built. Leland, writing c.l534, said that "divers paroch churches thereabouts . . . once a year do homage to Chew, their Mother Church", and Strachey in 1736 wrote that 'it is a peculiar, and in its jurisdiction are the Churches of Stowy, Stoke, Norton Malreward, besides Dundry which is annexed to it".

The vestry book of 1752 contains a list of the responsibilities of these other parishes for the upkeep of the walls and gates of the churchyard at Chew Magna and as late as the middle of the last century the parish of Dundry was required to repair a gate 'according to custom'.  

A very attractive feature inside the church is the screen, extending across the nave and both north and south aisles. It is of a design of which several examples are found in the Bristol area (at Keynsham, Long Ashton and Wrington), but this one has distinctive tracery and the fenestrations are wider, the doorways particularly so. Most of this is what remains of the original rood screen, probably first erected about 1470 deprived of its figures about 1550 and partially rebuilt and much repaired later.

The painted designs are similar to those in other local churches, which suggests that when the colours were restored in 1750 and about 1860 the copying was done with care. In its original form it would not have fan vaulting to the rood loft (as at Banwell and in many west Somerset churches), but would have a continuous coved ceiling under the loft. That would be a platform carrying the figures of Christ, the Virgin Mary and St. John, and would have been wide enough for the minister to stand on for parts of some services

Near the screen, and now being used as a lectern, is an old prayer desk bearing the arms and initials of Bishop Cornish. It is thought that this was brought across from the Court when that ceased to be the bishop's residence in 1548.