Church Of Saint Bartholomew

The Church of St Bartholomew is a building of group value, dating primarily to the 19th century, with significant earlier elements. The core of the church comprises an 11th-century tower and a 15th-century top section, with substantial rebuilding in 1859 by P. Boyce. The church is constructed of magnesian limestone laid in a herringbone pattern to the tower, and as snecked rubble for the 19th-century work, with ashlar detailing; the roof is covered in Welsh slate.

The church consists of a west tower, a three-bay aisled nave with a south porch, and a two-bay chancel with south vestry and north organ chamber projections. The 19th-century work is in the Gothic Revival style, characterised by geometrical tracery.

The west tower is of three stages and 11th-century origin. It features large sandstone quoins, partly replaced in limestone. The west side has a 19th-century four-light window with trefoiled lights. Original round-headed openings to the north and south sides are now blind. The second stage has a band and offset with round-headed windows to three sides. A further band and offset is beneath the altered 19th-century two-light belfry openings with 15th-century cusped heads. The upper part of the third stage was rebuilt in the 15th century, featuring an oversailing embattled parapet and a recessed octagonal spire pierced by quatrefoils, with small lucarnes.

The nave's south porch is on the left, with clasping buttresses flanking a trefoil-headed doorway set beneath a coped gable. The aisle to the right has a moulded plinth and sill band to quoined two-light windows with foiled lights; it also has gable copings. The chancel is lower. Angle buttresses flank the five-light east window with a hoodmould. A stepped lancet is situated in the second bay of the south side; the gabled vestry projection to its left has buttresses flanking a circular window with plate tracery, set within a pointed recess. The north organ chamber, similarly to the vestry, has an eastern lean-to with a shouldered-arched door. The east gable features a cross.

Inside, a moulded 19th-century tower arch is present. The aisle arcades feature cylindrical piers, moulded capitals, and two-order chamfered arches. The chancel arch is keel moulded, of two orders, with a hoodmould featuring head-carved stops. A double-chamfered arch leads to the organ chamber, and two trefoil-headed arches lead to the vestry, all beneath a chamfered arch. The sedilia consist of three seats divided by slender shafts to a stepped-lancet head. A late medieval octagonal font bowl sits on a later shaft. Late 18th-century wall monuments are located beneath the tower, three featuring broken pediments, one being a cartouche, and the others corniced panels with flat obelisks. Brasses in the vestry portray William Fretwell (died 1700) and John Fretwell (died 1725); a wall plaque commemorates Thomas Fretwell (died 1753). Stop-chamfered spine beams with run-out stops are also present.