The Blackdown Benefice

Otterford

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St. Leonard's is a church in the middle of rolling farmland, with no associated village. The present church is fourteenth century, but there was an earlier church on the site, mentioned as the "chapel of Otriforde", a daughter church of Taunton Priory. It is halfway between Exeter and Glastonbury and was a pilgrim church, run originally by two monks who lived at Holman Clavel, a mile away.

It was enlarged by the addition of a north aisle in 1861, so the sculpture of a queen's head there is likely to have been Victoria, though this does not seem to be known.

Over the porch is a sundial dated 1826 inscribed "Our days on earth are as a shadow", and there is early graffiti on the jamb of the main door with a date of 1641. The wooden vaulting over the nave is probably Victorian, but there is an earlier 16th century barrel vaulted roof over the chancel.

The church is adjacent to the beautiful Otterford Lakes, once the estate of William Bleadon, a Taunton surgeon, who built a six-turreted Tudor style house there in 1841, surrounded by a landscaped garden. The house was demolished in 1947 as it was considered unsafe; the garden with its lakes is now owned by the Water Board and is open to the public.

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