A visit to the village church in Buckland St. Mary high on the Blackdown Hills in Somerset.

The ancient Somerset village of Buckland St. Mary, Buckland means land granted to the thanes by the Saxon Kings, stands 700 feet high on the Blackdown Hills. 

A short drive along narrow country lanes, not far from the A303, brings you into the village and its incongruous, but impressive, Church of St. Mary.  Incongruous because of the small size of the community which it serves, yet impressive enough to be known as the “Cathedral of the Hills”.

The Church of St. Mary in the Somerset village of Buckland St. Mary.

The church was built between 1853 and 1863. It was designed by London architect Benjamin Ferry and paid for by John Edwin Lance.  It is the third church to be built on the site.  Lance, from a well-to-do family, was rector of St. Mary’s from 1832 to 1885.

On arrival John Lance had himself built a new rectory in the style of a Victorian Gothic mansion – today it is known as Buckland House.  When finished the ground floor of the rectory had a hall, library, double drawing room, dining room, parish room, kitchen, larder, pantry, butler’s pantry and bedroom.  The first floor had nine bedrooms, a dressing room, and a linen room with 4 attics above.  The house stood in 37 acres of glebe land and had a staff to match its size and stature.

It was the death of his wife which motivated Lance to have the church rebuilt.  The finished building was described by Pevsner as: “A noble incongruity, due to the rector, the Rev. J. E. Lance.  Large with a substantial s w tower and in a style not at all du pays.  Moreover far too large for a small and scattered congregation.”

The s w tower of St. Mary's church in the Somerset village of Buckland St. Mary.

The war memorial in the churchyard of St. Mary's, Buckland St. Mary, Somerset.

Sadly a carter was killed during the construction of the church.  He was carting materiel when his horses ran away; the wagon overturned and the man was crushed to death beneath the stones.  The story is on a stone in the churchyard with this quaint warning: “May all carters who read this take warning and never get in their wagon”.  I could not find the stone on my stroll around the church, but I am sure to visit Buckland St. Mary again and will have another look.

However, I did come across the grave of Lt. Col. John Conrad Pringle, Royal Engineers, who died in 1952 aged 71, and that of his wife Ethel Gladys who was over 100 years old when she died in 1991.  Perhaps the fresh air on the Blackdowns accounted for the lady’s longevity?

The grave of Lt. Col. and Mrs John Conrad Pringle in the churchyard of  St. Mary's in the Somerset village of Buckland St. Mary.