Church Of St Edith

Church of St. Edith

Parish church, primarily of the early 14th century with later alterations and additions. The building is constructed in ashlar with lead-covered roofs of low pitch.

The church comprises a west tower, a four-bay nave with south aisle and porch, and a two-bay chancel.

The west tower is in three stages with diagonal buttresses and is crenellated, with moulded coping stones to the merlons and embrasures. The recessed spire was rebuilt in 1797 and partly taken down in 1950. It is octagonal with two tiers of lucarnes. The west door is square-headed with a lancet window above having a trefoiled head. The second stage has a square-headed loop to each side, and the belfry openings have Y-tracery with trefoil-headed lights.

The south aisle has buttresses at the bay divisions and angle buttresses to each end, a plain parapet with moulded coping and string course, and a 19th-century gabled porch with pointed arch opening. Inside the porch is a 14th-century doorway with two orders of colonettes and much weathered foliated capitals; the inner roll moulding of the arch is keeled and the outer filleted, with an ogee-shaped hood mould terminating in heads. The westernmost of the aisle windows is of two lights with reticulated tracery beneath a square head and wave-moulded surround. In the north wall is a similar but taller window with truncated tracery. The other two south windows are pointed, each having two cinquefoil-headed lights with Decorated tracery, wave-moulded surrounds and returned hood moulds. In the east wall of the aisle is a tall 16th-century window with three trefoil-headed lights beneath a segmental pointed arch with returned hood.

A clerestory was raised in the 15th century with square-headed windows of two trefoiled ogee-headed lights on the north side, and simple two-light mullioned windows on the south side.

The north aisle, except for the east bay, was demolished in the mid-18th century. This side of the nave was refaced and windows inserted with segmental pointed heads and Y-tracery. The east bay was rendered and given round-headed windows to the east and west; a window in the north wall of two pointed lights was blocked. To the west of this window, at roof level, is a figure carved as a drainage spout.

The chancel contains a 15th or 16th-century east window with three tiers of four cinquefoil-headed lights and nominal Perpendicular tracery beneath a depressed four-centred arch and concave quarter-round moulded surround. The side windows are mainly 14th-century; the eastern ones each have two trefoiled ogee-headed lights and a single reticulation beneath a two-centred arch. Both western windows have square heads; the northern one is 14th-century, the southern one 15th or 16th-century.

Interior

The four-bay south arcade has double chamfered pointed arches and continuous hood mould on octagonal columns with moulded capitals. A similar north arcade, now blocked, contains in its easternmost bay the tomb of the Perkins family, former occupants of the demolished Orton Hall. The tower arch is pointed and double chamfered, springing directly from the side walls. The chancel arch is wide and lofty with double chamfered moulding on engaged semi-octagonal columns with moulded capitals.

The 15th or 16th-century nave roof sits on undecorated cambered tie beams. The steeply pitched 14th-century roof line is visible high up on the west wall; immediately below it is a pair of moulded corbels which supported part of the former roof structure. The aisle has a ceiling carried on chamfered tie beams. The 19th-century low-pitched chancel roof has braced tie beams with braces springing from corbels.

Fixtures, Fittings and Monuments

A full set of 18th-century box pews occupies the nave, incorporating a pulpit with canopy. A second 18th-century pulpit stands at the east end of the nave. In the south aisle is a baluster font inscribed 'S.S. PERKINS ESQ. 1764'. Along the south wall is a stone bench formed partly of a coffin lid carved with a cross and chalice. On the south side of the south arcade, wall paintings have been revealed by removal of limewash, showing scrolls and chevron patterns.

Towards the east end of the aisle is a tomb recess with segmental pointed arch and roll and fillet-moulded surround. Next to it is a trefoiled ogee-headed piscina indicating that a chapel, probably a chantry, formerly occupied this location. Between this chapel and the chancel is a squint, and in the chancel itself is an ogee-headed piscina.

A plain tombstone in the south aisle bears a carving at the head end of a man on a horse, and at the foot end a cross. Next to it is an early 16th-century incised slab depicting a man and woman with children below. The eastern bay of the north aisle contains a 14th-century recumbent effigy of a Cistercian Abbot beneath a crocketed ogee canopy. Wall tablets include one to Samuel Steele, died 1731, with the inscription flanked by curtains and surmounted at the corners by urns spouting flame, in the centre by a trumpeting angel and a representation of the Holy Spirit.