Church Of St Leodegar

Church of St Leodegar

This is a parish church of late 12th-century origin that was substantially rebuilt around 1420, with the chancel rebuilt in 1760 and restored by George Gilbert Scott Junior around 1880. The building is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with some ashlar and lined stucco.

The church comprises a western tower, clerestoried nave with aisles, and a facetted chancel. The original church possessed a crossing tower which collapsed in 1419. The present 3-stage tower has stepped corner buttresses and a battlemented parapet with angle grotesques. The paired belfry lights are arranged in 2 tiers with broadly cusped heads. On the west side, a pointed doorway features a deeply moulded rectangular surround with trefoils in the spandrels and a hood mould with figured stops. Above the door is a 4-light window with a 4-centred arched head.

The rendered north aisle has a plain parapet and contains three 19th-century 3-light windows with panel tracery—one at each end and five along the side—set between stepped buttresses and all within 15th-century chamfered surrounds. Five 3-light clerestory windows of the 15th century now have 19th-century cusped tracery. The red brick facetted chancel has a plain tiled hipped roof with plinth and dentillated eaves. A blank east window features ashlar key and impost blocks, matching the side windows. The south aisle mirrors the north, with one blank side window, three windows, and a single buttress. A shaped rainwater hopper dated 1775 appears on the clerestory.

Interior

The 5-bay nave arcades reveal the church's building history. The north arcade reuses 13th-century clustered shafts with annular capitals and double-chamfered arches. The south arcade has octagonal shafts, bell-moulded bases, annular capitals (one with hobnail decoration), two double-chamfered arches, and three with a chamfer and roll moulding. The third columns from the west end retain large bases of the earlier shafted columns that formed the original crossing, with fragments of interlocking trefoil frieze built into the wall above. The tall tower arch has octagonal reveals and a double-chamfered arch with the outer order continuous. Around 1200, 5 lozenge-shaped pillars with clustered and some collared shafts support a deeply moulded 13th-century chancel arch. The 15th-century nave roof of 5 bays survives with moulded tie beams, principals, demi figures to the sides, and plain corbels, with a dentillated cornice with rosettes extending to the chancel.

Fittings and Monuments

Some reused 15th-century tracery appears on the choir stalls. The reredos features late 18th-century painted texts. A charity board dated 1794 hangs in the north aisle. The 15th-century octagonal font stands on a shafted base with blank shields in quatrefoil panels to the sides, upon a tall contemporary base. A 14th-century octagonal font bowl, much abraded, features traceried panels with cusped ogee arches and shields.

An octagonal stone pulpit is dated 1881. Three 18th-century broken pedimented wall monuments line the aisles. In the north aisle is a 14th-century black marble ledger slab to Adam of Frampton and his wife, rendered in low relief depicting the deceased beneath cusped and brattished arches.

Historical Context

Records in the Chancery Court document proceedings between 1426 and 1432 where Roger Derrys, a London mason, sued for payment following the rebuilding of the church tower and nave. The chancel rebuilding was undertaken at the same time as the refronting of the Rectory, now Wyberton Park, by the Rector Dr. John Shaw.