Church Of St Leonard

Church of St Leonard, Lexden Road

A medieval church once stood at Lexden, but the present structure was rebuilt in 1820-21 to designs by Mark Graystone Thompson, a Suffolk-based carpenter, incorporating monuments from the older building. Thompson applied a lean lancet Gothic style to a Georgian preaching-box church plan. The chancel was substantially rebuilt and enlarged in 1892-94 to designs by J C Traylen in a grander Perpendicular style, though the planned matching south chancel chapel was never completed. A parish rooms complex was added in 2008 by Bakers of Danbury, replacing the former south porch and south-west vestry with a lower rendered building linked by a passage to the nave.

The 1820s phase is rendered with blocked-out masonry, while the chancel is brick-faced with knapped flint and rubble on a deep rusticated freestone plinth. The parish rooms are rendered. Both have slate and copper roofs. Coade stone pinnacles ornament the north porch.

The plan consists of a wide unaisled nave with a square west tower flanked by stair turrets, a north porch, and the south parish rooms extension. The chancel contains a north chancel chapel, a shallow south organ chamber, and the incomplete south chapel.

The showpiece is the north elevation. The Perpendicular-style chancel rises higher than the nave, with a deep plinth and diagonal buttresses. A large five-light east window with Perpendicular tracery, low transom, and a carved head to the arch lights the chancel. The north chapel has a lean-to roof, diagonal buttresses, and two-light Perpendicular windows. A clerestory above the north chapel contains two-light traceried windows, while brick blocking marks the intended arcade to the unfinished south chapel.

The nave is tall and boxy with a plain parapet and buttresses with offsets. Three-light windows sit in recessed, splayed openings with Perpendicular tracery. The north porch features polygonal buttresses with miniature buttresses, and tall pinnacles with crocketted finials. The removed south porch and vestry created space for the 2008 parish rooms link, which is lower than the nave and has east and west gables with a large south dormer.

The square tower has splayed corners on the upper stages, each face ending in a gabled parapet. Two windows on the west face display Y-tracery in splayed, recessed frames—there is no west door. An octagonal copper-clad spire with a louvered base crowns the tower. Square stair turrets flank the tower for access to the west gallery, ending just below the nave parapet and featuring Y-tracery windows to north and south.

Inside, plastered and painted walls enclose a wide nave with a west gallery having short returns along the north and south walls, supported on slim cast iron columns at the west and on traceried brackets on the sides. Two west doors lead to staircases and a lobby beneath the tower. The gallery frontal displays gilded blind tracery and panelling. Dado panelling with dentil cornicing runs along the nave north and south walls. The plaster ceiling of the 1820s roof was removed in the 1890s, revealing a queen post now boarded behind the rafters.

Small early 19th-century arches with foliate spandrels and inscriptions (now gilded) connect the nave to north and south chapels in square frames. A plain early 19th-century arch above the south arch opens to the organ chamber. Polychrome alabaster banding adorns the chancel east wall, with angels holding shields at the lower corners of the east window. Two-bay arcades flank the chancel, with octagonal piers, moulded arches, and hollow-chamfered arches. The north arcade opens into the north chapel; the south is largely occupied by the organ and opens into the shallow unfinished south chapel. The chancel roof is a king post design with diagonal braces between queen struts and tracery infill.

Much of the internal woodwork was designed and carved by the late 19th-century rector, J H Lester. North and south chancel walls have panelled recesses with canopied sedilia. The communion rails and altar are heavily carved timber. Choir stalls feature shaped ends and carved arm rests, with larger readers' desks at the ends bearing poppy heads and statue niches toward the nave. An elaborately carved polygonal timber pulpit stands on a wineglass stem, its sides carved with figures of the evangelists beneath ogee canopies. A matching polygonal, wineglass-shaped portable timber font is plain by contrast.

Several good wall monuments survive, most notably one to Richard Hewett (died 1771): an enormous half-round white marble plinth supporting a large urn with figures in relief, attributed to Richard Hayward and exemplifying elegant Neo-classical design. The chancel east window is a good late 19th-century work by Heaton, Butler and Bayne, as is their 1920 window in the east window of the north chapel. Windows in the nave and north aisle date from 1946-67, largely by Whitefrairs.

Lexden gave its name to a medieval hundred, a local administrative division, but lay within the liberty of Colchester by the late 13th century. A parish church existed by the early 12th century, eventually acquiring a nave, chancel, north chapel or transept, timber north porch, vestry, and boarded bell cot. The building deteriorated from at least 1600 onward. Though repaired, it became inadequate by the early 19th century as Lexden transformed from village to suburb. The 1820-21 rebuilding employed the period's typical approach, overlaying a Gothic aesthetic on a Georgian preaching-box structure. By the late 19th century, the original shallow chancel no longer suited liturgical fashion and was replaced with a substantially larger and more elaborate design.

Mark Graystone Thompson (1783-1852), the designer of the 1820-21 rebuilding, was a carpenter based in Suffolk responsible for numerous churches and public buildings across Suffolk and Essex, with rectories as a particular speciality.