Church of St Lawrence and coffin lids and benches on south side

Church of St Lawrence and coffin lids and benches on south side

This parish church has a 15th-century core but was substantially rebuilt in 1833 by T. Trubshaw, with additions and the Heath Chapel added by Ernest Bates in 1873, and slight alterations made in 1894 by Lynham. The building is constructed of red sandstone, coursed and dressed, with a blue machine tile roof to the nave and lead roofing to the aisles, hidden behind parapets.

The church has a virtually rectangular plan with a projecting south porch, aisles, nave, and chancel, flanked by chapels. A northwest tower is tucked between the north aisle and nave. The architectural style throughout is local Perpendicular; Trubshaw's restoration work represents typical Perpendicular of the period.

The tower dates to the 15th century and comprises four stages with thin diagonal buttresses that become diagonal pilaster strips on the upper stages, running through to a crenellated parapet. Cavetto strings define the bell chamber, with gargoyles at the centre of the upper strings on the outer sides. The bell chamber has three-light openings with four-centred-arch panel tracery, and a round-arch window lights the first stage on the north side.

The shallow gabled porch of 1833 has a blind parvis window over a four-centre-pointed-arch entry. The aisles are contemporary with this work and extend four bays, divided by pilaster buttresses of two stages. A roll plinth string and a further string below the parapet are interrupted by three-light Perpendicular windows to each bay. The chapel bays of 1873, built at the east end of each aisle flanking the chancel, are gabled to the east and taller than the aisles. The southern chapel is unfenestrated with an upper string stepped over a blind opening; the northern chapel has a similar arrangement with a stepped label over a high-level three-light east window.

The nave and chancel are in one range with a continuous crenellated parapet. The nave has a clerestory of four bays of Perpendicular three-light windows. The east window displays three tiers of panel tracery, while the west window also features panel tracery with an enlarged centre light and a four-centred-arch west door above it. Seven coffin lids, mostly inscribed with crosses, are set as benches at plinth height between the bays of the south aisle.

The interior nave comprises four bays with octagonal columns and moulded capitals supporting the clerestory and a cambered, coffered, roll-moulded ceiling with gilded pendant bosses. The aisles have similar pent ceilings but simpler in detail. A pointed chancel arch with an inscription around its extrados separates the nave from the chancel.

The chancel terminates in a five-sided apse and features three-tiered, blind, trefoil-headed panel tracery of three bays on all sides, with the east window of three lights integrated into this scheme. Segmental ribs run to a centre boss of a flat ceiling. To the north are an organ and vestry bay; to the south is the Heath Chapel, accessed via a pointed arch off the aisle. This chapel is invisibly top-lit and has an intensely patterned encaustic tile and marble floor with the Heath coat-of-arms at its centre. A decorative wrought iron railed enclosure surrounds the church's major monument: William and Mary Heath of 1872, created by Matthew Noble in marble. The life-sized figures are set beneath the figure of Christ, all against a pointed arch-headed ground. Eleven plaques to the Heath family are on the chapel sides, with a further marble plaque of 1872 to William Heath on the south wall of the aisle, featuring twin-columned gabled pilasters supporting a crocketted centre gable over an inscription.

The church contains other notable monuments. The Bowyer Memorial is a chest tomb of 1649 in marble, partly vaulted under the tower, with a slab top featuring an inscribed edge and painted carved coats-of-arms to the longer sides—eighteen to the north and three to the south. A further Bowyer wall memorial of 1749 in the north aisle has a segmental pediment over a coat-of-arms supported by Ionic pilasters on gadrooned rims to corbels.

The font is of drum shape with round-arched blind arcaded sides. An octagonal oak pulpit stands on a stem. The stone altar features blind tracery similar to that of the chancel sides. Fragments of medieval glass, including a coat-of-arms of the Biddulph family, are retained in the east window. A painted hatchment is displayed on the south wall of the nave.