
Harry Mount
Journalist and Writer
- Place of Worship
- St Andrew’s Church
- About
- A Grade I listed building, architecturally wonderful, and the final resting place of Siegfried Sassoon.
- Location
- Mells, Somerset BA11 3PW
- Denomination
- Church of England
Almost too much beauty to deal with.
St Andrew’s, Mells, in Somerset, scores a royal flush for us church bibbers. You approach the West Country four-decker tower via an oddly symmetrical medieval lane, 15th century New Street. On one side is the many-gabled Jacobean manor. On the other, a high-minded selection of graves - Siegfried Sassoon, Lady Violet Bonham Carter and Ronald Knox. Mells shows what artistic treasure troves churches can be - tombstones by Gill and Lutyens outside; inside, stained glass by William Nicholson and a Pre-Raphaelite memorial by Burne-Jones. Most moving of all is the WWI memorial of Edward Horner on his horse, by Munnings no less. I last saw it in the snow - almost too much beauty to deal with.