Church Of St Botolph

Church of St Botolph, Main Street, Newbold on Avon

This is a spacious parish church built mainly in the 15th century, constructed in local pinkish sandstone ashlar with some mixed rubble and slate roofs. The tower base may date to the 12th century, while the chancel was rebuilt in the 19th century by an architect whose name is not recorded.

The church is planned with a west tower, a four-bay nave with clerestory and lean-to aisles on north and south, and a two-bay chancel. The west tower is not tall and rises in four stages. Its lower two stages feature heavy clasping buttresses, characteristics typical of the 12th or early 13th century. The tower was refaced during heightening in Perpendicular style, with diagonal buttresses rising from the tops of the earlier clasping ones. The west window contains three cinquefoil lights with hoodmould and mask stops. The bell stage has a single louvred opening on each face containing two cusped lights, and an embattled parapet crowns the whole. The north and south aisles are Perpendicular with three-light windows under four-centred heads; much of the tracery throughout the church has been renewed in the 19th century or later. The north porch, probably contemporary with the doors of around 1455, has a low-pitched gable, diagonal buttresses with cusped gables, and paired niches with elaborate vaulted canopies flanking the outer arch, though no figures remain. The clerestory displays three-light windows and an embattled parapet. On the south side stands an even more imposing Perpendicular porch, apparently intended for the congregation from Long Lawford across the river to the south. It has side-facing buttresses with renewed pinnacles and a raised centre to the gable, containing an 18th-century Gothick statuary niche. The Victorian chancel is constructed of finer buff-coloured ashlar with solid parapets and more delicate two-light Perpendicular windows under two-centred arches.

The interior is high and spacious with plastered walls except in the south aisle. The tall arcade piers have lozenge-shaped bases rising to circular attached shafts at the cardinal points and polygonal shafts between; only the circular shafts carry capitals. The arcades are double-chamfered, as is the chancel arch. Continuous hoodmoulds run around the arcade arches, and wall shafts rise to corbels supporting the roof trusses. All roofs were replaced in the 19th century. The north aisle chapel contains a piscina. South of the chancel arch are doors to the rood stairs. The south porch now serves as a vestry and retains a 15th-century stone rib vault with traces of original gilding.

The north doors, dated around 1455, feature vertical panelling with the names of three churchwardens carved on the outer face. The communion table is 17th century with communion rails possibly dating to around 1680–1710. An oak pulpit dated 1909 displays linenfold panels. At the east end of the south aisle is a sunken area containing early 14th-century encaustic floor tiles. An octagonal Perpendicular font has a panelled stem and sides. The pews are simple oak, probably of the early to mid-20th century.

The church contains an important series of monuments. In the south aisle east is a low table tomb to Galfridus Allisley, died 1441, with arcaded sides and inscribed figures of Allisley and his wife on top. Nearby in an arched recess is a finely preserved slab to Thomas Boughton, died 1454, depicted in armour. Around the Allisley monument stand two early Renaissance Boughton monuments: a two-tier design to Edward Boughton, died 1548, and his family with stiffly posed Mannerist figures and classical pilasters arranged asymmetrically in the lower tier; and opposite, a monument to Edward Boughton died 1625 with his wife, son and daughter-in-law, showing the two couples facing each other at prayer desks. In the chancel are monuments to Sir Egerton Leigh, died 1818 (an obelisk with a female figure pointing to heaven while nursing the dying man), and John Ward-Boughton-Leigh, died 1868 (in a Gothic frame with an angel and mourning wife). Facing these is a very large Baroque standing monument to Sir William and Lady Boughton dated 1716, signed by John Hunt of Northampton, a pupil of Grinling Gibbons. It is Hunt's most important work, featuring life-sized standing figures with an urn between them and rather stiff drapery above, set within a frame of fluted Composite pilasters supporting a swan-neck pediment with an achievement of arms. An organ of around 1800, installed in 1858 from Rugby School chapel, was moved to the tower arch in 1978. Above and behind it is a wrought-iron screen of around 1716, formerly surrounding the Boughton monument. Royal arms of 1796 hang over the chancel arch. The stained glass is unsigned, mostly late Victorian and Edwardian.

The church has been restored several times with architects' names not identified. New pews were installed in 1820 and the chancel rebuilt in the 19th century. A major restoration occurred in 1908–9, reopening on 30 July 1909. This work included fitting screens around the Boughton monuments and removal of a west gallery.