Church of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

Parish church on the north side of High Street in Whitwell. The building spans the 12th to 19th centuries, constructed in coursed rubblestone with ashlar dressings. The roof is lead and Welsh slate. The plan comprises a west tower, aisled nave with south porch, transepts, chancel and north vestry. Stone-coped gables with plain kneelers, an encircled cross finial and crocketted pinnacles decorate the east end.

The west tower is of two stages separated by a set-off. It is embraced to the east by the nave and has low diagonal buttresses to the west. The lower stage on the south side has a tiny round-arched window, a small plain rectangular window and a circular clock face. To the west is a 12th-century doorway with one order of colonnettes, leaf capitals and zigzag in the arch, now fitted with a panelled door and decorative ironwork. A 12th-century round-arched window with hoodmould sits above. The lower stage to the north is blind. Two-light bell-openings with cusped tracery appear on all four sides. The tower terminates in battlements and four crocketted pinnacles.

The lean-to north aisle has a plain parapet and a flat-arched window to the west with two round-arched lights. The north elevation of the nave displays three three-light windows with segment-pointed arches and cusped lights. Two plain round-arched 12th-century clerestory windows and a heavy corbel table punctuate this elevation.

The gabled north transept has broad buttress-thickening to its west wall. It features a Decorated three-light north window with cusped tracery and a two-light Decorated east window. The gabled north chapel to its north has a rose window with reticulation units to the east. A low flat-roofed vestry with plain parapets adjoins to the north, with a window of 1-3-1 lights featuring cusped ogee lights and blind tracery dividing the outer lights from the centre. A second lean-to vestry has a flat-arched two-light east window with a reticulation unit.

The chancel features a large four-light east window with geometrical tracery. Three incised grave stones are set in the wall below this window. Angle buttresses with two set-offs, the lower ones gabletted on the south east corner, flank the chancel. The south side of the chancel has a large two-light window with unencircled quatrefoils. To its left is a plain chamfered priest's doorway with returned hoodmould and a blind lancet above. A smaller similar two-light window stands further left.

The gabled south transept contains two two-light Decorated windows with flowing tracery to the east and a three-light south window with flowing tracery. A sundial is set high on its south face. The south aisle has one three-light segment-headed window with cusped lancets and returned hoodmould, plus a plain parapet. Three 12th-century round-arched clerestory windows and a bold corbel table line this side. East of the transept is a two-light clerestory window. To the left of the porch stands a three-light window with four-centred arch and deep reveals. A 12th-century round-arched window appears at the west end of the aisle.

The deeply projecting gabled south porch has angle buttresses and a double-chamfered entrance with semi-octagonal responds and a cross finial. The depressed round-arched south doorway is fitted with a studded plank door with decorative iron hinges.

Interior

The nave has four-bay north and south arcades with plain, stepped round arches, circular piers and capitals. Keeled responds occur to the east and plain square responds to the west; the north west respond has scalloped capitals. Double-chamfered pointed arches from the aisles into the transepts spring from moulded corbels. A plain round-arched tower arch, now blocked and fitted with an early 20th-century blind screen, opens above. Clerestory windows on each side light the transepts.

The chancel arch is richly moulded, 12th-century work of Transitional character with tripartite keeled responds, waterleaf and scalloped capitals and finely detailed arch mouldings. An upper rood doorway stands to its left.

The north transept contains an east window matching the exterior. Its north wall holds a large cusped ogee tomb recess with finials. The west wall displays a monument to Roger Manners, who died in 1632—a standing wall monument with a recumbent effigy in armour beneath a shallow arch between two black columns. Medieval stained glass survives in the north transept east windows.

The south transept has a 20th-century parclose screen and an ogee-headed piscina set low in its wall.

A plain tub-shaped circular font stands in the nave.

The chancel contains an arch to the organ chamber, dying into the imposts. Two plainly chamfered pointed-arched north doorways, one of them 19th-century, give access from the transept. A traceried north piscina with crocketted gable and an ogee-arched south piscina are present. An elaborate pair of sedilia features openwork cusping, ogee elements, steep gables and extensive crocketing.