Church Of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

This is a parish church with origins in the 11th century, substantially rebuilt and added to in the 12th, 13th, 14th and 15th centuries, and comprehensively restored in 1882 by the architects Bodley and Garner. The building is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings and lead roofs.

The church comprises a western tower, a nave with clerestory and north and south aisles, a south porch, a chancel, a north transept, and a vestry. The three-stage plain unbuttressed square tower sits on a basal plinth. The ground floor has a lancet opening on the west face. The first floor contains a square-headed window. The belfry stage features paired belfry lights beneath round arches with monolithic throughstones and midwall shafts topped with simple volute capitals. The top is embattled (19th century work) and fitted with 15th-century water chutes.

The north aisle contains a single restored lancet in its west wall. The north wall of the aisle has two 15th-century two-light windows with ogee heads, panel tracery and hood moulds. A blocked doorway with flat lintel stands near the west end. The north clerestory comprises four paired 15th-century trefoil ogee lights beneath square hood moulds, below a plain parapet with three bold gargoyles.

The north transept's west wall has a single 19th-century window. The north wall of the transept features stepped angle buttresses and a restored three-light 14th-century debased curvilinear window with three trefoil lights surmounted by a trilobe within a two-centred arch, with hood mould and human head label stops. The transept's east wall contains a single three-light 15th-century window with cusped lights and embattled panel tracery in a three-centred low arch with human head stops.

The 1882 vestry sits in the angle between the transept and chancel. The chancel's east wall has a three-light 19th-century window. The chancel's south wall contains a 13th-century priest's door and two tall lancets, all with simple chamfered hood moulds. The south aisle's east wall has a 19th-century three-light window, and its south wall contains three 19th-century copies of 15th-century two-light windows. The south clerestory matches the north. The south aisle's west wall has a single 13th-century lancet. The south porch, dating from 1882 in 13th-century style, features octagonal jambs to a moulded two-centred arch with two pierced side lights. The 19th-century inner doorway is in Norman style with nook shafts, two orders of dog-tooth moulding and a moulded hood mould.

Interior

The nave's north arcade comprises three bays. The two westerly bays are late 12th century, with circular pillars and responds having stiff-leaf volute capitals and square abaci. They have double stepped chamfered orders with hood mould and beast and human head label stops. The easterly arch is early 13th century with circular responds and double chamfered arch. The south arcade has three bays of 13th-century work. The westerly pair have octagonal pillars and responds with stiff-leaf capitals and double chamfered arches with human head label stops. The easterly arch has keeled responds and circular abaci with a double chamfered profile. The eastern arches in both arcades are separated from the others by short sections of walling. The south side of the southern pier preserves the western jamb of an earlier window.

The massive tower arch has plain reveals, chamfered imposts and two double orders of roll moulding with a square-section hood mould to its round head. Above is a blocked doorway with an inserted quatrefoil. A holy water stoup stands to the east of the south door, and a 19th-century piscina sits at the east end of the south aisle.

A 13th-century double chamfered arch dying to its reveals opens into the north transept, from which a 19th-century doorway opens into the vestry. North and south of the chancel are single large late 13th-century double chamfered arches. The northern arch has conceptual foliage on its capitals, and both have octagonal responds. The north arch cuts through the site of an earlier 13th-century lancet. On this side is a late 13th-century doorway with hood mould and ammonite label stops, with to the east a moulded segmental-headed 14th-century Easter sepulchre with a central, presumably repositioned, clerical head. Five steps ascend to the altar, probably reflecting 14th-century ritual arrangement.

The roofs of the nave, north transept and chancel are of tie-beam construction dating from 1882 and are elaborately carved and painted. Some corbels are 15th-century work.

Fittings and Monuments

The carved screen base and misericord seats at the west end of the chancel are 15th century. The turned baluster altar rails are 18th century. The 13th-century font has a circular blank arcaded bowl resting on an octagonal base with detached round shafts decorated with conceptual foliage sprigs and heads. All other fittings—including candelabrum, rood, side screens, reredos and an elaborately decorated organ—date from the 1882 restoration.

In the chancel is a flat Purbeck marble slab with a matrix for a 15th-century Lombardic inscription round the outer edge. The north wall bears a 17th-century brass to Clifford and an unusual painted metal panel dated 1631 with decorated borders and shield. A marble wall tablet in Greek taste commemorates Sir John Beckett (died 1847) and is grouped with three other 19th-century Beckett memorials in the chancel.