St George's has been the centre of Christian worship in Sampford Brett for at least eight hundred years. During that time, it has been repaired, extended, altered and restored, and the process continues.
The age of the church is uncertain but everything points to it being founded in the first quarter of the thirteenth century. The earliest written record of its existance is in 1239, between Nicholas the Rector and the Prioer of Stogursey by which the Rector was to receive the tithes of Aller in return for an annual payment.
St George's Church Sampford Brett
If the church was built in the early thirteenth century, it can only have been founded by the Bret family who were lords of the manors of Sandford and Torweston. The land on which the church was built, and that for a Rectory and glebe, must have been gifted by them, and they would have paid for the building.
By the end of the twelfth century, the Bret family was well established among the smaller landowners, possessing not only Sandford and Torweston, but land elsewhere, including in Watchet. They had weathered the storm caused by the assassination of Archbishop Becket in 1170 (Richard Bret of Sandford and his neighbour Reynold FitzUrse of Orchard were two of the assassins). The decision of Simon Bret, Richard's brother, to give the church of St. Decuman's in Watchet, of which he was patron, as a prebend in Wells cathedral, circa 1190, may well have been an attempt to bring closure for the family to a deed whose infamy had resounded across Europe. Robert FitzUrse, half-brother of Reynold had done the same for the chapel in Williton some years earlier.
It is tempting to speculate that Simon Bret may already have had in mind a plan to build a new church in Sandford, as a place of worship for his family and tenantry. If this is so, it is likely to have taken place before 1225, when the early death of his son John, left his grandson, William, a minor, heir to the estate and the land was therefore held for some years in wardship
The church's connection with the Bret family remained close until the middle of the fourteenth century.
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