St George's Church
more than just a building...
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St George's C of E
Fons George,
Taunton
TA1 3JT
01823 284253
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The History of St George's Church, Wilton
The Church of
ST GEORGE
WILTON
For a thousand years and probably more there has been a Christian church on the site of St. George's, Wilton, and perhaps a pagan shrine before that. Somewhere near is a spring which gave Wilton (well-tun) its name in Saxon times, and later an estate here was called Fons George, St George's well. Stones in the church's west wall, each side of the tower, are fragments of Saxon `long and short' work, the only such remains in West Somerset. They show that before the Norman Conquest this place was important enough, or its owner powerful enough, to have a stone church.
There were two great powers in Medieval Taunton. The bishops of Winchester, lords of the town, were owners of most of the land, including the great lake (vivarium is Latin for a fish pond) which lay between Wilton and the town, the area now called Vivary Park; and the priors of Taunton controlled the churches and owned the Fons George estate. From 1127 Wilton was in the care of the canons of Taunton priory, but by 1308 something had gone wrong with the arrangement, and from then onwards the vicar of St Mary's was appointed to look after the churches at Wilton and Trull and a chapel in Taunton castle. But that system, too, broke down, and in the next century the priory was being blamed for not providing a priest for Wilton.
During all these changes of fortune the building itself was drastically altered.
A simple unbuttressed tower was added to the tiny Saxon chapel at some time not far removed from the Norman
Conquest, and it survived until 1853.
The plain corbels each side of the tower arch show that aisles were built in the 13th century to provide more room for the growing population, and the nave and chancel were much altered in the 15th century, with new arcades, new and higher roofs and larger windows.
The great changes of the Reformation have left no physical traces in the building - no statue-niches, no medieval carvings, not even a screen across the entrance to the chancel, let alone a roodloft above - but changes there were. After the dissolution of
Taunton priory in 1539 Wilton's parish priests, strictly called curates, were appointed (and paid for years only £6 13s 4d) by a succession of local families, the
last two the Kinglakes of Wilton House
(portrayed in the window over the chancel arch) and the Prings, whose family Bible is on a still in the south aisle.
Complaints against clergymen and parishioners are found among the records of the church courts for this as for most other parishes: few if any sermons were preached in the 16th century, at least partly the fault of the patron, who had in the 1580s failed to appoint a priest. James Jones, curate in 1606, had to leave in a hurry after being spied on by two ladies while marrying a pair of eloping lovers at midnight. In 1620 the wardens were even uncertain whether they had a copy of the newly-published version of the Bible. And at almost every court session there were people like John Thorn and Joan Street who in 1623 `do but seldome come to theire parishe church'. More unusual was curate John Bowden, who in 1630 was in trouble for praying that Charles I's Catholic queen would give up her religion, for not caring much for the Prayer Book, using instead a catechism of decidedly Puritan flavour, and for altering the psalms so that the congregation (so the wardens reported) `understand not what they sing and knowe not where to find anie suche in the booke'. Small wonder that under a man like him Archbishop Laud's demand for Anglican order was ignored, and still in 1636 the font had no canopy and the communion table was not enclosed by rails.
During the disturbed times of the Civil War the chalice disappeared (though perhaps it was found again, for our oldest is dated 1636); and in the 1660s one of the wardens made off with the accounts. Even more disturbing, if a local tradition is to be believed, was the case of Bernard Smith, son of a mayor of Taunton, who at the time of Monmouth's rebellion in 1685 hanged himself at one of the church windows. The only relic of the period is a piece of stained glass in the western window of the north aisle, with the arms of the Powell family of Cutliffe farm. The date, now no longer visible, was 1674.
The 18th century is not a proud part of Anglican history, and Taunton at the time was full of prosperous Nonconformists. Several small meeting-houses were established in the parish, including one in Sherford in 1699. Church funds were largely spent in patching up the fabric, especially the old tower, which the bell-ringers were doing their best to shake down. More money went on quenching thirsts after peals for a royal birth or victory over the French than on helping the poor or employing a teacher for the children. By 1776 there were only fifteen regular (that is quarterly) communicants in the parish.
The Royal Arms above the south door is a fine declaration of the loyalty of the parish, an Establishment parish whose gentry and mercantile inhabitants included Taunton M.P. Sir Benjamin Hammett, whose tomb has stood in the oldest part of the churchyard since his death in 1800.
But Wilton had a fast-growing population of ordinary folk. In 1801 there were 374 inhabitants, far more than the
little church could hold, and the total rose even quicker when the County Gaol was built in 1843.
The work of the church at first did not keep pace. In 1815 the parish priest admitted that he lived six miles away and
looked after two other churches, leaving a curate from the other side of town to look after Wilton and another church.
But that was quite reasonable for the time, since only one service was held each Sunday. There was still no resident
priest in 1840, but the church had begun to emerge into new life. Under the ingenious plans of the architect Richard
Carver, who lies buried just outside the walls that he built, the whole
church was extended eastwards in 1837, to make room for more worshippers and by 1840 those worshippers could go to two
services each Sunday and hear two sermons. But still the building itself was too small, and in 1870 the whole interior
was refurnished, almost as it remains today, providing more seats in place of the old and clumsy pews.
A new tower had already in 1853 taken the place of the unsafe one which for so long had been a drain on parish funds.
There was progress, too, in other directions. A school was opened in the hamlet of Galmington in the 1860s,
and a mission church of St Michael in 1892. St Michael's is
now a fully-fledged and thriving centre of its own community. A day school at Wilton was closed in 1907, but its buildings
were bought and altered to make the present hall for the many parish activities. By 1900 the two Sunday
services and monthly celebrations which were the rule in 1870 were replaced by the Daily
Office and celebrations three times a week in the parish church, and by regular services at Galmington.
There were a resident vicar and curate, large Sunday schools and a choir, a team of district visitors, Bible classes
and a Men's Club.
A new parish day school, Bishop Henderson School, opened in 1974, which has grown to over 400 pupils and has its own chaplain. There is active support for mission at home and abroad. The Victorian and Edwardian setting has been reordered to allow more flexible use of the space for worship and other events, with disabled access. Here in a building whose origins take us back almost to the beginning of Christianity in this part of Somerset, worship is offered with a mixture of traditional and contemporary media, to God who is the same yesterday, today and for ever.
Text: Robert Dunning
Drawings: Anne Hickox
O God our Father, we give you thanks for the faith and
vision of Christians who have gone before us. We thank you
for their faithfulness in worship and in witness, and in the
care of our ancient places of prayer.
Grant to us in our day a similar faith and vision, that the
Church may continue to proclaim the faith of Christ
crucified and risen, and to make known his offer of new life
to all who turn to him.
Send us out in the power of your Spirit to live and work to
your praise and glory.
Amen
