Church of St Peter and St Paul, South Petherton

The Church of St Peter and St Paul is the parish church of the village of South Petherton, in the rolling countryside of South Somerset. A large and imposing cruciform church built on the site of an earlier Saxon minster, with the majority of its fabric dating from the thirteenth to fifteenth centuries, it is a Grade I listed building of real grandeur — far larger than most village churches. It is famous above all for its rare octagonal central tower, which is reputed to be the tallest of its kind in Britain, a distinctive landmark rising above the village and the surrounding country.

South Petherton has ancient origins. The village grew up close to the Fosse Way, the great Roman road built in the first and second centuries to run from Isca Dumnoniorum, now Exeter, to Lindum Colonia, now Lincoln, which crosses Somerset less than a mile from the present village. In the Anglo-Saxon period it is likely that a monastery or minster was established here to oversee the various chapels of the surrounding district, or "hundred", which bore the same name — a sign of the early importance of the place. By the time of the Norman Conquest, the land at South Petherton was held by William the Conqueror himself, and it passed through the hands of several succeeding monarchs.

The church's medieval history is bound up with the great religious houses of the region. In the later years of the reign of King Stephen, around 1143 to 1154, the king gave the land he held here — including the village and the former monastery — to Wells Cathedral. Then in 1181 or 1182, King Henry II gave the church itself directly to Bruton Abbey, and it became a cell, or dependency, of that abbey until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. It was probably with the resources of the abbey that the church began to be gradually rebuilt, from its Saxon and Norman form into the great Gothic structure that survives today; surviving twelfth-century rubble in the chancel walls suggests that the chancel may have been the first part to be rebuilt. Over the following centuries, through the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, the church grew into its present imposing cruciform shape, crowned by its remarkable octagonal tower.

The church is notable for the quality of its Gothic architecture, its stained-glass windows and its monuments, which commemorate the families connected with the parish over the centuries. Built of the warm local stone of the region, it is a building of cathedral-like ambition for a Somerset village, reflecting the wealth and importance of the medieval community. Its octagonal central tower, unusual in English church architecture and said to be the tallest octagonal tower in the country, gives it a unique and memorable silhouette.

Today the Church of St Peter and St Paul continues as an active Anglican parish church in the Diocese of Bath and Wells, serving the village of South Petherton. Its scale, its architecture and its distinctive tower make it one of the most impressive village churches in Somerset, a building whose history reaches back through the medieval abbeys and the Saxon minster to the very edge of the Roman road that first brought people to this place.

The church stands at the heart of the village of South Petherton, in South Somerset, near the towns of Ilminster and Yeovil. The Fosse Way and the line of the Roman road run close by, along with the great houses and gardens of the area — Montacute House and Barrington Court, both of the National Trust — the golden "hamstone" villages built of the local Ham Hill stone, the Somerset Levels, and the wider countryside of South Somerset, with the Dorset border and the A303 route to the south-west within easy reach.

From the Saxon minster beside the Fosse Way, through the gift of the church to Bruton Abbey by Henry II and the gradual rebuilding into a great Gothic church from the twelfth to the fifteenth centuries, to its rare octagonal tower and its fine monuments, the Church of St Peter and St Paul gathers many centuries of Somerset history into one building. A Grade I listed church with the tallest octagonal tower in Britain, it remains the living parish church of South Petherton — a grand and ancient church at the heart of its village.