Grade 1 listed church in the centre of Taunton. The Church was built in 1863 by the renowned architect Sir George Gilbert Scott. This is an extremely imposing example of his work from the peak of his career, displaying a highly characteristic fusion of medieval forms with his own distinctive approach. Externally and internally, the building is a showcase of Somerset stones: squared rubble walls of Westleigh stone, banded dressings of ochre Ham stone, Bath stone and red Bishop’s Lydeard sandstone. Some Monkton rag, Caen stone and Devonshire marble inside. Steep tiled roofs with diagonal patterns in red on brown, mixing club and plain edge finishes. The contrasting play of colour and texture is especially effective.
Work carried out
High level works to the roof slopes. In particular the tiles to the North pitch of the north aisle had suffered with frost damage, many of the tiles had come to the end of their life.
Lead valleys were renewed to bring them up to LSA standards as they have suffered splitting due to excessively long bays. The boarding was also adjusted and repaired to allow extra bays and steps and a new code 7 lead valley was installed.
Connectivity between the parapet walls and the roof slopes was also addressed with the new addition of lead soakers. As is often the case these were omitted from the original design allowing water into the top of the wall heads and causing deterioration to timbers.
The original cast guttering was refurbished and lime pointing works and hamstone repairs carried out to the masonry where required.
