Church Of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

Parish church built between 1881 and 1893, designed by JG Hall of Canterbury. The building is constructed in Kentish rag with ashlar dressings and moulded and chamfered plinths. The roofs are stone coped slate, steeply pitched over the nave and transepts, with pent roofs to the aisles, vestry, and south chapel. Stone eaves parapets, plain except where pierced and arcaded over the apse, are fitted with stone waterspouts and cast-iron guttering with integral rainwater goods. Stone gable crosses crown the transepts and west end, while a metal wheel cross marks the east end.

The building is designed in the Gothic Revival style with a plan comprising a 2-bay apsidal chancel, north vestry and south chapel, north and south transepts, and a 5-bay aisled nave with a south door. A north-west tower with north doors rises above, and clerestory lighting extends to all parts except the tower.

The east end is buttressed with a single tall lancet beneath a corbel stopped hoodmould on each face. A moulded sillstring continues beneath lancets at the angle buttressed east ends of the vestry and chapel. The vestry bays are separated by a 2-stage buttress. To the east stands a 2-centred arched doorway of 3 orders with continuous hollow chamfers on each side of attached shafts with bulbous capitals, above which is a short lancet; to the west are paired lancets. Above the vestry, the chancel has two clerestory lights of paired lancets. On the south side, the chapel features paired lancets in its south wall with two clerestory lights to the chancel above, matching the north side arrangement.

The transepts are angle buttressed with tall gable end windows of 3 stepped lancets recessed in 2-centred arches on detached filleted shafts with bulbous capitals. The hoodmoulds have foliate stops. A dropped moulded and filleted sillstring is returned around buttresses. Both transepts have 2-centred hollow chamfer stopped doorways to the east and two pairs of clerestory lancets.

The north and south aisles are articulated by 2-stage buttresses between tripled lancets, except in the westernmost bays where lancets are paired. The south door sits in a double hollow chamfered 2-centred arch flanked by narrow lancets with paired short lancets above. Clerestory lights to the aisles are single lancets with hoodmoulds.

The angle buttressed west end features double doors in a 2-centred arch, with a west window treated as the transept windows, having filleted and moulded sillstring and foliate stops.

The 4-stage tower is buttressed to full height with string courses between stages. To the north are two doorways separated by a 3-stage gabled buttress, both formed as 2-centred arches of 3 orders with filleted hoodmoulds with block stops. Above each are two pairs of tall lancets with attached centre shafts with bulbous capitals and shaft rings, the filleted sillstring returning around buttresses. The west face has similar second stage windows separated by a buttress. Each belfry face contains an opening of paired louvred lancets in hollow chamfered 2-centred arches springing from piers with moulded imposts. A moulded corbel cornice supports a plain parapet with an octagonal broach spire above. At the base of the north and south faces of the spire are clock faces in moulded stone panels with ogee heads.

All doors are of nail studded boarding with good wrought-ironwork. Unless otherwise indicated, all paired and tripled lancet windows have arcaded hoodmoulds with block stops, and all openings are double hollow chamfered.