Church Of St Vedest

Church of St Vedest

Parish church constructed in the Early 12th century, with substantial late 18th-century and 1857 alterations. The building is constructed in green sandstone rubble with red brick and limestone ashlar dressings. The roofs are slate with stone coped east gable and chevroned brick eaves.

The church comprises a west tower, nave with south porch, polygonal chancel, and north vestry. The broad, squat west tower is of four stages. The lower three and a half metres is constructed in 12th-century sandstone with a plinth to the north and a west doorway with a 19th-century pointed head with fanlight, moulded wooden doorcase and panelled door. The upper stages are in red brick with an ashlar string course and bell openings on three sides, each with segmental head, plain brick surround and shuttering. Brick and stone battlements cap the tower.

A broad plinth of rubble runs around the entire church, with red brick above. The north side features two late 18th-century semi-circular windows that were gothicized in 1857 and now have pointed heads with two pointed lights containing inner ogee-headed lights, mouchettes, hood moulds and head label stops. A blind semi-circular headed 18th-century opening lies to the east.

The north vestry dates to 1857 and contains a rectangular window to the north with three Caernarvon head lights and an east doorway with Caernarvon head, continuous chamfered surround and plank door. The polygonal chancel has a blank north side and a 19th-century east window with pointed head, two semi-circular headed lights with tracery, hood mould and grotesque head label stops. The south side of the chancel contains a pointed 19th-century window with two semi-circular headed lights, tracery, hood mould and head label stops.

The south side of the nave is defined by pilaster buttresses and features two pointed 19th-century windows, each with two cusped lights, tracery and hood mould which runs into a flat ashlar string course on each side. The south porch is a gabled timber frame structure of 1857 with herringbone brick nogging and a studded gabled lintel inscribed "Keep thy foot when thou goest into the house of God". The porch interior contains flanking stone benches and a 19th-century doorway with pointed, chamfered head, hood mould and label stop heads, with double plank doors.

The interior retains an Early 12th-century tower arch with triple responds featuring scalloped capitals and a semi-circular head of two orders, possibly rebuilt at a later date. A late 18th-century chancel arch has a semi-circular head flanked by single semi-circular headed openings. 19th-century roofs, altar rail, pulpit, lectern, choir stalls and pews are present.

The church contains several monuments. A fine alabaster standing wall monument to Edward Hanby, died 1626, comprises four tiers with Hanby himself kneeling before a prie-dieu at the top, flanked by skulls and hourglass. Above is a broken segmental pediment with cartouche and coats of arms. Below, his heirs John and Elizabeth Chaplin kneel on each side of a prie-dieu with broken pediment above, and seven daughters and six sons kneel below with various inscriptions on black marble. A fragment of an Anglo-Saxon interlace tomb slab lies to the left.

A grey and white marble monument to Thomas Chaplin, died 1747, by Hoare of Bath, depicts a woman mourning over an urn with a winged hourglass above. Two white marble ovals on black marble fields commemorate Frederick Chaplin, died 1863, and Charles Chaplin, died 1835, and family. A grey and white marble monument with urn and palms commemorates Elizabeth Chaplin, died 1833.