St. Leonard's Church, Butleigh, Somerset.
The configuration and appearance of the present stone building of St. Leonard's dates from the mid-nineteenth century, but there has been a church on this site since Saxon times. The oldest parts of the church are the jambs to the outer door. These are thought to be Saxon and may have been part of the early chancel arch then removed and re-used.
In Norman times Butleigh was recorded in the Doomsday Book as Boduchelei, belonging to the Abbey of Glastonbury to which the church at Butleigh was attached for hundreds of years. During the fourteenth century the church was largely rebuilt, not in the usual medieval cruciform plan, but as a long narrow structure with an aisle-less nave, chancel and a central tower as wall and pillar masonry and a gargoyle on the South West corner of the outer testifies.
The windows to the nave and chancel are elegant late fourteenth century with internal decorated cusping that is rare for Somerset. The fine South porch is of the decorated style of the late fourteenth century. The old gable cross still remains with an elegant carved boss in the gable.
Outside, on the West side of the South porch, there are two scratch dials, one with a noonline at 1 metre 20 centimetres from the ground, and another 1 metre 72 centimetres. These stones are thought to be a Saxon sun-dial re-used like the jambs in the building of the porch.
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