Dunster Church - St George

The Church of St George at Dunster  is very special. It is a wool church, built largely in the late medieval period with the profits made by merchants from local industry and trade. Long before that there was a smaller Norman church on the site. The Norman west door arch survives. Before 1100 the lord of the manor, William de Mohun gave the church and lands to Bath Abbey and a small daughter priory was set up in Dunster.

When you visit Dunster church try to enter through the beautiful cloister garden near the dovecot and tithe barn that once belonging to the priory. The bell-tower dominates the village from most directions. The top two stages were completed in 1443 by John Marys, a builder from Stoke Courcy (Stogursey near Bridgwater), who was paid the lordly sum of 13s 4d a foot for 'workemanchyppe' and 20s extra for carving each of the four pinnacles. The parish did provide materials and equipment!  A series of tones are played on the bells every four hours.

Inside the church one's eye is caught immediately by the rood screen with its wonderful carving. Once a rood - a statue of Christ on the cross is flanked by the Virgin Mary and St John and would have stood on top of the screen. There is a platform at the top, some five feet or more wide and approached by stairs, where mass was said on special days. From this platform during the performance of miracle plays the voice of God would boom. The screen was built as a result of arbitration following disagreements between town and priory in the late fifteenth century and you can understand the feelings of the townsfolk who were trying to take part in a service which was going on in Latin so far away! As a result the church was divided, the monks retaining the east end which is still known as the Priory Church.

At the back of the church near the font look out for John Wyther, baker, and his wife, Agnes, who are commemorated by a floor brass dated 1487. It is the only picture of Dunster townspeople of that period. John Wyther was one of the group of men who stood up to the monks. At the east end of the south aisle is the wonderfully carved memorial to Thomas Luttrell of Dunster Casde and his wife, Margaret, born a Hadley in nearby Withycombe. St George's Church Dunster has been featured on BBC "English Churches", housing the Luttrell tombs and the longest Rood Screen in England. The church clock plays a different tune daily on the hours one, five, and nine. Not to be missed.

The priory church and nunnery located in the centre of Dunster were jointly the spiritual centre in Dunster from the medieval ages. Built in the 14th Centry St George's church was shared by the Monks and the parishoners for years. The church in the heart of the village is bordered on two sides by the village gardens which are open to the public.

Dunster Church St Georges

Inside the church an ornate wooden partion still remains from when the monks and locals  had to be seperated beacuse they kept  "annoying" each  other.  Thursday evenings Very little is known of Christianity in Dunster before about 1100 AD. However about 500 years earlier, the people of the area would have been listening to the preaching of missionaries such as St Carantoc, Patron of neighbouring Carhampton, and St Decuman, Patron of Watchet. They had crossed from Wales and found places to live near the coast, and the steps and stump of a cross in the churchyard at Dunster mark the place where they, and other preachers, set up wooden crosses and spoke about Christ before even the simplest church was built in the parish.

St Georges Dunster Church West Door

A church was first erected on the present site by William de Mohun during the 11th century, of which only the West door and North wall survive. Sometime during the last decade of that century, William de Mohun gave the small Church of St George, together with the tithes of several manors and two fisheries, to the Benedictine Abbey at Bath.

The Priory is first mentioned in 1177, and the monks from Bath Abbey would have been responsible for the building of the larger church. During the reign of Henry 3rd. the Choir of the church was further enlarged, and from 1262 the Priory had a more distinct organisation. Its endowments were increased by the De Mohun family and the monks held and farmed a separate manor together with land to the north of the church. The majority of the present building dates from the 13th century, with the tower being added in the 1440's. The church at that time was shared for worship by the monks and the parishioners but, in 1357, the difficulties of sharing were beginning to emerge and in that year the Prior, Richard of Childester, drew up an agreement setting out how the church was to be used by each group.

Cottage in Dunster

This worked for over 100 years but in 1498 trouble blew up again between priory and parish and, after arbitration in Glastonbury, agreement was reached. This resulted in the wonderful carved rood screen being constructed which crosses the whole breadth of the church, making it the longest in England. This effectively divided the church in two with the parish using the west chancel and the monks the east.

Dunster Church

This dual use did not last long for, in 1539 under Henry VIII, Dunster Priory was dissolved along with the monasteries.The priory buildings and land passed into the hands of the Crown and were then leased to John Luttrell, who lived in the Priory Farm beside the church. He Luttrellwho had recently inherited the castle.

In 1543 the property was sold to the Luttrell family but shortly after, the rectory, the tithe receipts and the responsibility for appointing a vicar were conveyed to Hugh Stewkely, who in 1556 was accused of not making proper provision for a curate although he was receiving the tithe income.

There then followed, over the next three centuries, a period of increasing neglect in the fabric of the church, and the Methodists and Wesleyans used this period to get a foothold in the village. This seems to also reflect the gradual downturn in the town's fortunes to the point when, in 1838, the architect S.C.Buckler condemned the church as "ruinous, damp, draughty and dangerous". However, after George Luttrell had a new village school built in 1872, and a complete restoration of the church began in 1875, then the influence of the Methodists and Wesleyans declined, and their properties were finally closed and sold off.

The rectory remained in the possession of descendants of Hugh Stewkely until about 1790 when the property reverted to the Luttrell family. The lack of provision for a priest continued as a problem in the parish, there being a minimal endowment to support a clergyman until 1872, when a new vicarage was built by Thomas Fownes Luttrell, and the cure properly endowed.

See also:

www.stgeorgesdunster.co.uk

Contributed by: Jane Trewin