Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Grade I listed buildings in West Somerset/archive1

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The following is an archived discussion of a featured list nomination. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the article's talk page or in Wikipedia talk:Featured list candidates. No further edits should be made to this page.

The list was promoted by Matthewedwards 01:43, 10 May 2009 [1].

List of Grade I listed buildings in West Somerset[edit]

Nominator(s): — Rod talk
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I am nominating this as a featured list because it is comprehensive, supported by appropriate references and images and, I believe, meets all FL criteria. It follows the design & layout of the recently promoted List of Grade I listed buildings in North Somerset. — Rod talk 21:42, 21 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from Truco
Lead
  • 'The district of West Somerset covers a largely rural area, with a population of 35,400 in an area of 726.84 square kilometres (280.63 sq mi). The largest centres of population are the coastal towns of Minehead (population 10,000) and Watchet (4,400). The council's administrative headquarters are located in the village of Williton.' -- Source?
  • 'There are 33 Grade I listed buildings in West Somerset, the oldest being Culbone Church, which is believed to be the smallest church in England,[3] and Tarr Steps. ' -- 1)instead of 'which is believed', how about is one of the smallest churches in England, the original is a bit POV-ish 2)To expand the lead, it needs to be a bit more detailed as in how old they are by stating the approximate completion date.
  • 'Church of St Columba the Virgin' is used in the table, and Culbone church is used in the prose, be consistent.
  • State the most recently completed listed buildings.
  • You can further summarize the list by stating which location has the most buildings as well.--Truco 20:55, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response - thanks for your comments. I have attempted to address them by adding sources for population and area, rewording the oldest.. and adding more recent buildings. The article title is Culbone Church so I have used that in the lead & table and commented on Dunster having the highest number. If there is anything you feel is needed please let me know.— Rod talk 22:09, 23 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • 'There are 33 Grade I listed buildings in West Somerset, the oldest being Culbone Church, which is one of the smallest churches in England,[5] and pre-Norman in origin[6] and Tarr Steps which may originate in the Bronze Age, although others date them from around 1400.' -- Hmm. Consider rewording or splitting this sentence because its a bit wordy and just never seems to end.
  • 'The most recent buildings included in the list are Crowcombe Court which was completed in 1739[8] and the Church of St John the Baptist in Carhampton which was rebuilt in 1863.' -> 'The most recent buildings included in the list are Crowcombe Court, which was completed in 1739,[8] and the Church of St John the Baptist in Carhampton, which was rebuilt in 1863.'--Truco 00:50, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response - various commas added to try to improve.— Rod talk 07:32, 24 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Great. I did a small fix.--Truco 01:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support -- Previous issues resolved; list now meets WP:FL?. Excellent work!--Truco 01:53, 25 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment There's not really much one can find to object to, or helpful criticism to improve it; or at least, I'm not good enough to help. There is one single issue that leaves me a bit skeptical, and this regards the Church of St John the Baptist, Carhampton. You write: "The most recent buildings included in the list" is "the Church of St John the Baptist in Carhampton, which was rebuilt in 1863". Now, as you know better than me, the great majority of parish churches were subject to heavyhanded restoration in the Victorian age; now to single out St John is in my opinion misleading, because while the tower was rebuilt the church remains essentially medieval, nothwstanding the restoration, and not a Neo-Gothic building. On the same grounds I'm not sure saying in the tables for date completion at St John "1863" is fully correct.--Aldux (talk) 10:43, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Further Comment When you say "date completed" among the columns, what does "completed" stand exactly for? The doubt came reading the description of the Church of St Andrew, Stogursey; you date completion 1117, but it was considerably enlarged in 1180 and remodelled in the 15th-century, according to your article on the church.--Aldux (talk) 10:58, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response - thank you for your comments. As you know obtaining accurate dates and other details of buildings hundreds of years old can be difficult, and as you say the majority have undergone extensive changes. I have tried to take as the key date the first sentence of the descriptions at Images of England or the Somerset Historic Environment Record as these are the details used by reliable sources (English Heritage and the County Council) as part of the formal record of listed buildings, but would agree "completion" is often nebulous. I am aware of one Grade I listed building at Downside Abbey which is still listed as unfinished! Perhaps you could suggest another heading for the date column or we could add another "note" explaining that completion date is often unclear? I will also remove the "most recent" claim from the lede.— Rod talk 11:24, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Thanks for the lede. I personally believe the date column is a useful bit of information and I perfectly understand your difficulties - I'm currently facing similar ones with that column in a separate article. Maybe a good idea was what you propose, i.e. a note clarifying that medieval churches were generally built and rebuilt through an arc of several centuries.--Aldux (talk) 13:09, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Further response - I've added a note, but it seems "wordy" and tries to cover lots of options - if you can improve the wording that would be great.— Rod talk 15:37, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
I gave a try, but somebody with a better control of the language than me would be certainly more successful. That said, as all issues are now covered I pass to support.--Aldux (talk) 16:46, 26 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment Don't take this personally, but your comment hasn't exactly striked me as one of the most thoughtful and ponderated I've had the the opportunity to read at FLC... Do begin with, you know that Runcorn is just a civil parish, while West Somerset is a district with 43 civil parishes in it; and that while Runcorn has only 59 listed buildings, West Somerset has 1228 listed buildings. And you seriously want to put these all in a single page? Oh, and lets not forget another tiny detail: List of Grade I listed buildings in North Somerset, List of Grade I listed buildings in Bristol and List of Grade I listed buildings in Greater Manchester are all featured lists; and also, there are such lists of Grade I listed buildings for every single county of England, while the case of the Runcorn list is quite exceptional.--Aldux (talk) 00:23, 27 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response Thanks to Aldux for making most of the points I would have done about the numbers & if all listed buildings were included it would exceed the recommended page size. If there is any forking it is of List of Grade I listed buildings in Somerset which was split into districts because of the page size issues. I'd also point out that as it says in the article - Grade I structures are those considered to be "buildings of exceptional interest" and therefore the most important.— Rod talk 20:16, 28 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Comment I also think that this page passes on 3b. -- Scorpion0422 20:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Comments from Hassocks Great list! I'm very excited to see this here, as I am currently preparing several similar lists for other parts of England. I am comfortable with the layout in its present form, but will suggest some things to think about (maybe you have already considered these, Rod, and found them to be inappropriate for this list, which is fine). Also some other comments...

  • You could work in a quote about Grade I buildings being considered "of more than national importance". I've got a ref for it somewhere if it's not in ref [1]. It would help to put the buildings' importance in a wider context.
  • Second paragraph might need refs for the largest centres of population and administrative HQ information; I'm not sure, but I would probably add them to be on the safe side.
  • There are numerous religious structures in Somerset, with the largest number being Anglican parish churches, dating from norman or medieval eras. Some problems:
  • →Perhaps "Somerset has many religious structures..." for the first clause
  • →"With" as a connector is ungainly; try "...religious structures; the largest number are from the Norman or medieval eras".
  • →"norman" should be capitalised.
  • Suggest wikilinking manor house.
  • It would be lovely to have a picture column with a small (100px?) image of each building. Many are already available on the individual articles, and others would be reasonably easy to source, I imagine...? I wouldn't necessarily recommend this for longer lists of listed buildings, or those which contain lots of private houses, farms etc. I "don't mind the ribbon of pics down the side" approach, and have used it myself in the past; but for a relatively short list, adding pictures for each would bring benefits without causing the page to be too huge.
  • Did you consider coordinates rather than grid references? I prefer coordinates for their precision and more intuitive feel.
  • To save space, especially if pics are added (thereby making your rows wider), the grid ref (or coordinates) could be added to the location column. I have done this on some articles and it seems to work quite well.
  • Refs are good – Images of England is a resource I know well :) All buildings have their own articles, which is also good.

Also agree with comments above that the content fork argument is not an issue. Lists of "all" listed buildings (i.e. all grades) have their place in instances where there aren't many: hence List of listed buildings and structures in Crawley, a borough with only 95, and indeed the FL-status Runcorn list mentioned above. In Crawley, only three are Grade I, so a split into the three grades would not serve readers well. In the other direction, whole counties are far too large to create lists for, even for individual grades. Even some districts are problematic once you get down to the Grade II level (Brighton and Hove has about 1,120...). Hassocks5489 (tickets please!) 12:50, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Response Thank you for helpful suggestions and good luck with the similar lists in your area.
  • The extra quote for Grade I being "of more than national importance" would be good. It is not in [1]. I looked at List of listed buildings and structures in Crawley and thought it might be in ref [4] on that page - but this gives a broken link - help appreciated.
  • I haven't given figures of populations for largest centres, these can be confirmed from the articles themselves if needed and are not key to the list.
  • I have accepted & revised the lede based on your comments about the churches sentence & linking manor house - which I've also done on List of Grade I listed buildings in North Somerset which was recently promoted & I will apply to all the districts listed at List of Grade I listed buildings in Somerset which are all at various stages of development.
  • A picture column has been discussed at Wikipedia:Featured list candidates/List of Grade I listed buildings in North Somerset/archive1. I can see the attraction but have previously been advised against having too many images because of download times. It also doesn't look good where pictures are not available for all entries in a list & (having searched extensively while doing all the articles) I do not believe that appropriate free/licenced images "would be reasonably easy to source" (although I will be in West Somerset with a camera this weekend :).
  • The gridrefs link to the same GeoHack Tool as other forms of coordinates - which form has a "more intuitive feel" will probably depend on a readers previous experience. I would be happy to add these to the location column if others think this would be a good idea.
Thanks also for your comment on forking and size of lists. The one which is scaring me just to think about is List of Grade I listed buildings in Bath and North East Somerset and possible Grade II* and II lists. The council claims over 5,000 listed buildings of which 663 are grade I (although there are only around 100 English Heritage listings covering them).— Rod talk 16:19, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Support, all issues resolved. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:09, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved issues, Dabomb87 (talk)
Comments from Dabomb87 (talk · contribs)
  • Please don't link common terms such as England.
  • "are located in the village of Williton."
  • "The oldest is either Culbone Church, which is one of the smallest churches in England,[5] and pre-Norman in origin"
  • "Dunster has the greatest concentration of Grade I listed buildings" Comma after here.
  • "Somerset has many religious structures; the largest number are from the Norman or medieval eras. Some of the churches are included in the Somerset towers, a collection of distinctive, mostly spireless Gothic church towers."-->Somerset has many religious structures, most of which are from the Norman or medieval eras. Some of the churches are part of the Somerset towers, a collection of mostly spireless Gothic church towers. I removed "distinctive" as it seemed unnecessary; is "part of" better than included? Dabomb87 (talk) 22:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]
Response Thank you for your suggestions re grammar which I have accepted and changed.— Rod talk 07:56, 1 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Sources look good. Dabomb87 (talk) 22:49, 30 April 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Resolved comments from The Rambling Man (talk) 13:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
*Weak support - a few minor issues and a suggestion...
    • The population in the lead is very precise, I would add a timeframe to it, or "according to the xxxx Census" or whatever.
    • Any reason why Ref of Grid Ref is capitalised?
    • Notes 2 and 5 appear to be missing a full stop.
    • Personal preference, I'd like one larger lead image, up to 300px, then the rest in the Buildings section. You may lose one image doing this though. Just something to consider.
  • The Rambling Man (talk) 08:30, 2 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • ResponseThank you for your comments
    • Added 2001 census
    • Capitalisation changed in Grid ref
    • Full stops added for notes 2 & 5
    • I don't think one single image can represent the variety of buildings in the list - therefore I'm not sure how to select an appropriate one to make large & more significant than the rest.
I will continue working on the images & lede - taking into account the comments below.— Rod talk 21:10, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Support The Rambling Man (talk) 13:24, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Disappointed. I find it hard to get a grip on the articles this relates to. There appear to be no links to articles on the architectural styles, and precious little summary information on them. I'd be happy for a lead twice that size—it seems necessary to prepare our readers to get a lot out of the table. Can we have just a little info as well on the listing process / agency? How long has listing been going on for (since the 70s, if I had to have a guess). It's a fabulously rich topic and the list is much-needed. Lovely pics; but could you expand the captions for them by stating, at the very least, the century or year of construction, the style, and the location? Tony (talk) 12:59, 3 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response. Thanks for your comments. I have attempted to expand the lede with a little more information about the listing process (begun by a provision in the Town and Country Planning Act 1947), but I would suggest readers who want more about English Heritage etc could read the specific articles about them. The architectural styles are very mixed but I've added some dates and further info on the structures mentioned. I've also expanded the captions on the images to provide further context. I would be grateful for further guidance about what else should go in the lede & perhaps make you less disappointed with the list.— Rod talk 21:42, 4 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Comment Is there a better title for the "Date completed" column? The column has no specific dates, just years and centuries. Perhaps "Year completed" instead? -- Scorpion0422 20:44, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
  • Response column title changed as suggested.— Rod talk 21:19, 8 May 2009 (UTC)[reply]
The above discussion is preserved as an archive. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this page.
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