APPENDIX F
NORTH NEWTON CHURCH
(p. 139)
The church of North Newton has features suggestive of ancient celebrity, but the dates which are historically known, do not mount so high as might have been expected. The tower, which is the oldest part, and to which the high antiquity of a thousand years has been popularly attributed, speaks by its architecture, which is here represented. The earliest known date connected with the fabric is 1292, in which year the foundation stone of the elder chapel was laid by Richard de Barfleur, called also Richard de Plesseto. This being a chantry chapel, the endowment was taken away in 1548, and the fabric decayed. In the time of Charles I, Sir Thomas Wrothe built a new chapel and provided a stipend for the minister, which still continues. The Parable Door, the Oak Screen, and the Pulpit are evidently of the same period, and were probably given by the same benefactor.
The village of North Newton, originally a chapelry, was separated from the mother parish of North Petherton, and formed into an ecclesiastical parish on the twenty-third day of March, 1880. It is situated two miles north of Durston Station (Great Western Railway), four and a half south-west of Bridgwater, and seven north-east of Taunton. These particulars are taken from a little book entitled The Church and Parish of St. Peter’s, North Newton, by the Rev. L. H. King, M.A., Vicar; to whom I am also personally indebted for some interesting local information.