The Church of St Andrew in Cheddar

Cheddar

Cheddar is a large village and civil parish in the Sedgemoor district of the English county of Somerset. It is situated on the southern edge of the Mendip Hills, north-west of Wells. The civil parish includes the hamlets of Nyland and Bradley Cross...

, 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 dates from the 14th century and has been designated as a Grade I listed building.

The church was restored

Victorian restoration

Victorian restoration is the term commonly used to refer to the widespread and extensive refurbishment and rebuilding of Church of England churches and cathedrals that took place in England and Wales during the 19th-century reign of Queen Victoria...

 in 1873 by William Butterfield

William Butterfield

William Butterfield was a Gothic Revival architect and associated with the Oxford Movement . He is noted for his use of polychromy-Biography:...

. It contains some 15th-century stained glass

Stained glass

The term stained glass can refer to coloured glass as a material or to works produced from it. Throughout its thousand-year history, the term has been applied almost exclusively to the windows of churches and other significant buildings...

 and an altar table of 1631. The chest tomb

Church monument

A church monument is an architectural or sculptural memorial to a dead person or persons, located within a Christian church. It can take various forms, from a simple wall tablet to a large and elaborate structure which may include an effigy of the deceased person and other figures of familial or...

 in the chancel is believed to be to Sir Thomas Cheddar and is dated 1442.

The tower, which rises to 100 feet (30 m), and dates from around 1423, contains a bell dating from 1759 and made by Thomas Bilbie of the Bilbie family

Bilbie family

The Bilbie family were bell founders and clockmakers based initially in Chew Stoke, Somerset and later at Cullompton, Devon in south-west England from the late 17th century to the early 19th century....

.

St Andrew's is the Church of England

Church of England

The Church of England is the officially established Christian church in England and the Mother Church of the worldwide Anglican Communion. The church considers itself within the tradition of Western Christianity and dates its formal establishment principally to the mission to England by St...

parish church for Cheddar. The vicar is The Reverend Sue Rose, who was licensed as priest-in-charge in April 2009.