Church Of St Lawrence

CHURCH OF ST LAWRENCE

Parish church in Rushton. The fabric contains a 15th-century and earlier core, with substantial work dated variously from 1690 to 1848. The building is constructed of coursed and dressed stone and rubble with stone slate roofs. The principal features include verge parapets on shaped, corbelled kneelers and pinnacles.

The church comprises a west tower clasped by a vestry and store, nave, north aisle with family chapel, and chancel. The three-stage west tower is flanked by lean-tos to north and south. The profile from the west shows a gable set slightly lower and shallower than the nave, truncated below the apex and topped by a shiplap weather-boarded bell-chamber of one stage with a shingle roof, gabled to north and south. Single-light rectangular projecting louvred bell-chamber openings are present, along with a rectangular window to the north lean-to and beneath the west side of the bell-chamber. A four-light window with labelled chamfer-mullion work sits at ground floor level to the west end, and an arched light two-light window with cambered head stands adjacent to the vestry door, inscribed on the lintel with a shield marked I L W.

The south porch is gabled and timber-framed, dated mid-19th century, with arch-braces to the gable end and a truss dated 1768. The nave extends over four bays and underwent early 18th-century remodelling. It has a very low, single-storey eaves line to the south, broken by two slightly projecting tall gabled and pinnacled masonry wall-face dormers dated T S W, containing three-light round-arch windows with Gothic Survival tracery. Below and east of each dormer are windows of three round-headed lights, dated 1848. An ogee-headed south door, heavily nailed and boarded, is dated TWW.

The north aisle is a lean-to of three bays with low eaves dated 1713, featuring chamfer-mullioned three-light windows and a two-light window to the west return against the tower. A single-storey flat-roofed chapel extends from the east end of the aisle against the chancel, flush with its eastern end, with a crenellated parapet set above the aisle eaves. Two closely-spaced three-arch light square-headed windows face north, and a blocked door with entrance steps to the east stands against the chancel.

The chancel is dated 1690 and comprises a single bay of similar eaves height to the nave but shallower pitch. It features angle buttresses of four short stages and two massive gable buttresses on plinths, each of six short stages. The buttresses are dated below their corniced top stage A.D. 1848, referring to the buttresses only. The east window is a four-light round-headed opening with labelled ovolo mullioned and transom work, dated over TKW 1690. A chamfer-mullion two-light window stands to the south, and a blocked door adjacent to the east is inscribed in the lintel TPW.

The interior retains two king post trusses from the 15th-century timber-framed church, resting on posts to the north. The west truss is complete with tie and braced king post to collar plate bearing trussed rafter construction. The eastern truss has a replaced king post rising not to the collar but to the ridge, with curved arch-struts. The rafters are hidden beneath a barrel-vaulted plastered ceiling. A 17th-century west gallery features shaped flat balusters to the handrail. An early 18th-century timber pulpit of three-sided bay-front design stands with free-standing moulded columns to the angles. A circular stone drum-shaped font is positioned against the east wall of the vestry. The family chapel to the north-east of the church sits on a raised dais, with box pews and panelling to the east wall. Painted hatchments appear in the chancel. A large painted inscription on the centre of a beam reads: "O . WORSHIP . THE . LORD . IN . THE . BEAUTY . OF . HOLINESS".