Church of St Margaret, Babington
Encyclopedia
The Church of St Margaret within the grounds of Babington House
Babington House
Babington House is a Grade II* listed manor house, located in the village of Babington, between Radstock and Frome, in the county of Somerset, EnglandConverted to a private members club and hotel by Nick Jones, it is currently owned by Soho House Ltd...

 in Babington
Babington, Somerset
Babington is a small village between Radstock and Frome, Somerset, England, which has now largely disappeared.-History:The parish of Babington was part of the Kilmersdon Hundred,...

, Somerset
Somerset
The ceremonial and non-metropolitan county of Somerset in South West England borders Bristol and Gloucestershire to the north, Wiltshire to the east, Dorset to the south-east, and Devon to the south-west. It is partly bounded to the north and west by the Bristol Channel and the estuary of the...

, England is a Grade I listed building.

There may have been a Norman building on the site before the current church, which is thought to date from 1748 and was probably built by John Strahan
John Strahan
John Strahan was an architect working in Bristol and Bath, England in the early 18th century. He died around 1740.-List of works:* Shakespeare Public House, Bristol * Combe Hay Manor Combe Hay 1728 to 1730* Frampton Court, Frampton-on-Severn...

 or William Halfpenny
William Halfpenny
William Halfpenny was an English 18th-century architectural designer; in some of his publications he described himself as "architect and carpenter". He also wrote under the name of Michael Hoare.-Life and architectural work:...

, and is considered to be very similar in conception to Redland Chapel
Redland Chapel
Redland Chapel is a Georgian parish church in the Redland suburb of Bristol, England.It which was built, probably by John Strahan or William Halfpenny, with plasterwork by Thomas Paty, in 1742 as a private chapel for the local manor house, Redland Court, which is now Redland High School, though it...

 in Bristol
Bristol
Bristol is a city, unitary authority area and ceremonial county in South West England, with an estimated population of 433,100 for the unitary authority in 2009, and a surrounding Larger Urban Zone with an estimated 1,070,000 residents in 2007...

, probably by John Strahan but completed by William Halfpenny. The building was commissioned by the Knatchbull family.

The building includes an Apsidal sanctuary
Apse chapel
An apse chapel, in church architecture, is a chapel radiating tangentially from one of the bays or divisions of the apse. It is reached generally by a semicircular passageway, or ambulatory, exteriorly to the walls or piers of the apse....

 and a small west tower with an octagonal cupola
Cupola
In architecture, a cupola is a small, most-often dome-like, structure on top of a building. Often used to provide a lookout or to admit light and air, it usually crowns a larger roof or dome....

. The interior includes an unusual Royal Arms of the Hanoverians on the Rood.

Within the churchyard there are a set of three chest tombs. The monument to John Shute
John Shute
John Shute was an English artist and architect. His book, The First and Chief Grounds of Architecture, was the first work in English on classical architecture. Shute's patron was John Dudley, 1st Duke of Northumberland, for whom he built a residential wing at Dudley Castle.- References :*Morris,...

 is dated 1688 and that to Thomas Branch
Thomas Branch
Thomas Branch , was an author.Branch was the author of 'Thoughts on Dreaming' , and ' Principia Legis et Æquitatis' . The latter work, which presents in alphabetical order a collection of maxims, definitions, and remarkable sayings in law and equity, has been highly commended as a student's...

1779.

The church no longer hosts regular services but is licensed for weddings.
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