Church of St Gregory

SO 73 NE 4/33

CASTLEMORTON CP Church of St Gregory

25.03.68

GV I Church. Early C12 with C13 and C14 additions, arcade re-built mid-C17, restored 1879-80. Stone rubble with tile roofs. Comprises a west tower with stone spire, nave, north porch, south aisle, south transeptal chapel and lower chancel.

The tower has diagonal buttresses with niches and a south-east stair turret. The spire is set back behind an embattled parapet. The bell openings are each of a single trefoiled light. The west window is of three trefoiled lights under a pointed head with Perpendicular tracery. In the west wall of the aisle is a chamfered lancet window.

The north wall of the nave is of three bays: The left-hand window is of one light with low transom and a trefoiled ogee head: The middle window is of three cinquefoiled lights under a pointed head with Perpendicular tracery. The right-hand window is of three trefoiled lights under a pointed head.

The timber-framed porch, to the right of the second window, is close-studded with a middle rail. The C12 doorway has a round arch with zig-zag ornament, and angle shafts with scalloped capitals: The tympanum is carved with the Agnus Dei.

The south aisle has a three-light C15 window under a pointed head: To its right is a reset doorway similar to the north doorway but with a blank tympanum.

The south chapel has a hipped roof and a three-light south window with cusped intersecting tracery: In the east wall of the chapel is a window of two trefoiled lights: On the south side of the chancel is a window of two cinquefoiled lights under a flat head, and a priest's doorway to the left: In the north wall are two narrow round-headed C12 windows, reset when the chancel was rebuilt during the C19 restoration. The east window is C19 and of three cinquefoiled lights under a pointed head.

INTERIOR: tall tower arch pointed and chamfered in two orders. The south arcade is of three and a half bays. The arches are pointed and roughly four-centred, chamfered in two orders and springing from piers which are octagonal except for the western one, which is circular: The nave roof has rafters with arch-braced collars. High up in the north wall are two bracketed niches with elaborate carved canopies: The chancel arch is pointed and chamfered in two orders which die into the responds.

The font has a bowl carved with acanthus foliage on an octagonal base: In the south transept is a C18 baluster font, and, in the east wall, a C13 piscina with pointed head. The communion rails have flat pierced balusters inscribed: "R H S B 1684. Robert Archer Minister. J B W B 1683".

Listing NGR: SO7948937253