Church Of St Laurence

Church of St Laurence

Church dating from the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, restored in 1862 and 1875. Built in rubble and ashlar limestone with stone slate roofs. The building comprises a 2-stage west tower, a 3-bay nave with a south porch and north aisle, and a narrower 2-bay chancel with a north chapel and vestry.

The west tower is Perpendicular in style, with a chamfered plinth and moulded band. It has diagonal buttresses to the lower stage. The west side features a pointed 3-light window in a chamfered surround beneath a clock, with a string course containing an image niche above. A cusped iron clockface appears on the south side. The belfry openings are louvred, cusped 2-light designs with pointed arches beneath a string course decorated with gargoyles. The tower is topped by an embattled parapet with crocketed pinnacles, one of which is missing.

The south wall of the nave was encased in 1875 with a chamfered plinth and broad buttresses. A half-timbered porch of the same date encloses a 12th-century south doorway featuring a single order of columns within pier projections, a hoodmould and a cusped image niche above. Bays 2 and 3 contain renewed 3-light windows with intersecting tracery beneath gables that rise above the offsets of the encasing wall, with a plain parapet. The 15th-century north wall is constructed of large ashlar blocks with a chamfered plinth, moulded band and buttresses between bays, plus a diagonal west buttress. A blocked square-headed north door sits beneath an uncusped square-headed window of 3 Tudor-arched lights; similar windows appear in the other bays. The aisle's east window has a hoodmould.

The chancel is lower and of various periods of construction. It has a chamfered square-headed south priests' door beneath a section of dripcourse. To the west is a 2-light window with shouldered heads, and to the east a pointed 2-light window with geometrical tracery, alongside a square-headed window of 2 ogee lights. The latter is flanked on the left by a slender flat buttress and on the right by ashlar walling with a diagonal east buttress. A string course steps down beneath an east window with geometrical tracery and hoodmould, with an oculus at the coped gable. The 13th-century north chapel has slender buttresses flanking and beneath 2 lancet windows, and features a vesica in its coped gable. The north wall contains a lancet window and a blocked square-headed window to the left of the gabled vestry.

Interior features include a treble-chamfered pointed tower arch. The early 14th-century north aisle arcade has octagonal piers with a matching west respond, moulded capitals and 3 double-chamfered pointed arches. The restored 15th-century nave roof features shallow principal-rafter trusses with cusped stud infill; the end trusses are set on short posts with half-octagonal colonnettes. Two purlins run to each slope, with mask bosses at each truss and foliate bosses to the ridge. The north aisle has a moulded roof. In the chancel, a broad double-chamfered chancel arch (with its north end set on a pier from the aisle) connects to a double-chamfered arch from the aisle to the chapel. The 2-bay chapel arcade features a quatrefoil pier with matching responds to double-chamfered arches, and a half-arch to the west. The chancel's south wall retains the left jamb and head of a 12th-century window with a blocked priest's door to its left. There is a 2-seat sedilia with a central shaft and restored round arches. The chancel roof dates to the 20th century.

Monuments include cross-slab fragments in the chancel floor. A tomb chest beneath the east bay of the chapel arcade commemorates James Washington, dated 1579, depicting him on his wife's left above 12 named children, with shields above a chamfered plinth and an alabaster top. Another chest in the north-east corner of the chapel commemorates Leonard Wray, dated 1590. A third in the south-east corner features shields in quatrefoils and extensive inscription. Early 19th-century monuments on the north wall of the chapel include a plaque in a columned aedicule to John White of Doncaster and the East India Company (died 1837). Brasses within the sedilia commemorate Reverend Hall (died 1793) and Reverend Brook (died 1720); another brass in the chancel records details of 19th-century restorations. The two east windows of the chapel are by J. E. Nuttgens of High Wycombe, dating to 1943.