The church was commenced with the erection of the nave, chancel and porch
during the great
period of church building in the 13th century as landowners began to grow rich on the lucrative woollen trade with
Flanders. It is tempting to speculate that the church was built by the Benedictine Monks of
Sherborne Abbey only three
miles away in response to popular demand for an outlying chapel in the village whose land they owned.
There is no record of the appointment of a Rector to the parish until 1405 so it seems that for more than a century after
the simple Church was built, services were taken by priests from the Abbey.
The first Rector at Nether Compton was appointed in 1405, a few decades after the last outbreak of the Black Death which
had ravaged the population of England in the
14th century. The village appears to have prospered, however, as it was during the 15th century that that the Church was
enlarged with the building of the tower at the west end and a side chapel at the north. The nave was also partially
rebuilt and given its barrel roof.
Henry VIII's rift with Rome and lust for riches brought about the dissolution of the monasteries,
the lesser houses in 1536 and the greater, Sherborne Abbey (who owned the village) among them,
in 1540. It was during this time, in 1538, that the King's Vicar General,
Thomas Cromwell, introduced parish registers.
The 17th century was a time of religious dissent, political revolution and
civil war. Nether Compton, like much of the
West Country, was not untouched by these events. Tradition has it that during the summer of 1645 when the victorious
Parliamentary campaign in the west included the defeat of the Royalists at Langport on July 10th, the Parliamentary
cavalry stabled their horses in the church and "burnt popish
furnishings".
