Church Of St Luke

The Church of St Luke is a parish church with origins in the 13th century, significantly altered in the 18th century and restored in 1879-80 by Charles Kirk of Sleaford. It comprises a nave with a west bellcote, a chancel, and a vestry. The church is constructed of cobblestone and ironstone rubble with ashlared quoins, set beneath Swithland slate roofs with coped gables and kneelers. A moulded ironstone cornice runs along the top of the walls.

The west wall features a central buttress with a set-off band below which sits a chamfered lancet window of the 13th century. To the south is a diagonal buttress, and to the north an angle buttress, both with set-offs. Above sits a stone bellcote with a coped gable, kneelers, and a chamfered arched opening with engaged shafts, capitals and bases. The north wall incorporates three pairs of 19th-century chamfered lancet windows with hoodmoulds, separated by two buttresses. Blocked arcades from the 13th century are visible, and to the east is a blocked 13th-century pointed arch piscina. The south wall has a central doorway with a moulded pointed arch, a hoodmould with head-stops, and engaged shafts with capitals and bases, leading to double plank doors. To the west and east of the doorway are single pairs of 19th-century chamfered lancet windows. A buttress defines the southeast corner. Blocked 13th-century arcades are discernible internally. A cross finial adorns the east gable.

The chancel, dating from the 19th century, is built in a 13th-century style with an ironstone plinth and chamfered ashlar set-offs. The south wall features a central priest’s doorway with a shouldered semi-circular arch, a hoodmould and modern plank door. Flanking this are single pairs of chamfered lancet windows with hoodmoulds and foliate stops. The east window contains a 3-light pointed arch with geometrical tracery and a hoodmould, topped with a cross finial. The north vestry has diagonal buttresses and a 2-light chamfered arch east window.

Inside, the walls are rendered. A large, round-headed splayed reveal incorporates the west lancet. Pairs of 19th-century lancets in the north and south walls of the nave have interior shafts. The pointed, double-chamfered chancel arch has a hoodmould with stops and responds with capitals and bases. The north wall of the chancel contains a 4-centred chamfered arch with floral corbels, leading to the vestry, and a trefoil head piscina. The south wall window has interior shafts. There are sedilia with shafts and annulets, and a piscina on a floral corbel. The east window features 13th-century triple moulded jambs, a hoodmould with head-stops, and a plain sill. The church has 19th-century roofs. A 13th-century octagonal bowl and stem font features roll-moulded sides and a moulded capital inverted as a base. Late 18th-century furnishings include an altar table and altar rails. There are also late 19th-century pews, an 18th-century chest, an early 20th-century lectern, and an organ. Several late 18th and 19th-century monuments are present, including a late 18th-century marble memorial to the Shuttleworth family on the north wall of the chancel, featuring a pediment topped by an urn, and a panel with a weeping figure leaning upon an urn. A slate tablet on the south wall of the nave commemorates Col William Cole (d 1698), Lord of the Manor and a Commission Officer in Rayner Armies, and includes an armorial brass.