Church of St Edith

Church of St Edith, Bishop Wilton

A Grade I listed church of considerable architectural importance, with elements spanning from the 12th century to the 19th century. The building comprises a 12th-century chancel and nave, 13th-century aisles (rebuilt in the 14th century), an early 14th-century north transept, and a late 14th-century west tower and spire. A 19th-century south porch was added later. The church was substantially restored in 1858–59 for Sir Tatton Sykes by the architect J.L. Pearson, who also introduced a choir screen designed by G.E. Street. The building is constructed in ashlar with tiled roofs.

The three-stage west tower, which embraces the nave, features a high moulded plinth, western buttresses with offsets, and two-light pointed belfry openings. The parapet is crenellated with crocketed corner finials, and it supports a recessed octagonal spire topped with a weathercock. The west window consists of three lights with Perpendicular tracery beneath a hoodmould with face-stops. A 19th-century clockface in a carved surround is positioned on the south side of the second stage.

The nave comprises four bays with aisles, a south porch, and a north transept. It has a raised moulded plinth and buttresses with offsets. The south elevation displays three two-light square-headed windows with cusped ogee tracery. The largely rebuilt early 12th-century south door features three orders on nook-shafts: the outer decorated with beasts and human figures (including zodiacal symbols), the next with masks and trails, followed by a beakhead order, and the innermost of heavily stylised beakhead. Rosettes appear on the abaci of scalloped capitals, with moulded bases featuring pellets on the nook-shafts.

The north transept has a high moulded plinth and angle buttresses. Its north window is pointed with three lights and reticulated tracery, set beneath a hoodmould with face-stops. The chancel comprises three bays and features a moulded plinth with pilaster buttresses. Three narrow round-headed windows punctuate the south and north walls, with three more closely spaced windows at the east end. Coped gables with cross finials, all 19th-century work, feature throughout the exterior.

The interior reveals considerable detail. The north and south arcades have double-chamfered arches: the north arcade dates from the 13th century and the south from the 14th century. Both arcades rest on identical octagonal piers (with one cylindrical pier in the north arcade), featuring high moulded bases and capitals. The free-standing west tower rises on pointed double-chamfered arches to the north, south, and east, with the eastern arch displaying projecting grotesques to the east sides of its capitals; similar smaller heads project into the tower chamber. Semi-octagonal responds occur throughout. A pointed double-chamfered arch connects the north aisle to the transept, its north respond capital carved with deeply undercut oak leaves and acorns.

The 12th-century chancel arch comprises three orders on nook-shafts with moulded bases. The inner order features scallop capitals, while the outer orders carry masks within sunk demi-lunette panels decorated with intricate geometrical ornament. The inner order displays chevrons worked on a chamfer, the central order features stylised beakhead, and the outer order is beakhead work beneath a hoodmould with a running trail of stylised palm leaves.

The 19th-century font is octagonal in form, with a tub containing niches beneath nodding and crocketed ogees, each housing the effigy of a saint. Its elaborate timber cover in Gothic style features effigies of the four evangelists alternating with those of the four doctors of the Western church, all arranged beneath a tall fretted spire with pinnacles.

A notable brass and iron chancel screen features a frame and open arches in brass, with the lower section of each panel filled with foliate designs in wrought iron; the centre of each panel is marked by a glass bull's-eye. The wrought-iron overthrow to the gates is similarly treated. A fine mosaic floor of 1902 by Salviati features black pelta-shapes alternating with birds on a white background, copied from a floor in the Vatican that is itself a reused Roman example.

Three monuments stand on the south wall of the south aisle. The first is a wall tablet with Latin inscription beneath a cross potent, commemorating William Hildyard, who died 6 October 1632. To the west is a white marble tablet honouring Richard Darley and his wife, one of William Hildyard's three daughters, with an inscription in an oval cartouche flanked by drapes and putti above and below, topped by a heraldic achievement. To the east is a wall tablet to Welbury Norton, William Hildyard's grandson, who died in 1706. This features an oval form with a black lettered inscription and the Latin motto 'Vive et Frui' (live and enjoy yourself).