Church Of St Augustine

Church of St Augustine, Snave

This parish church dates from the 13th, 14th, and 15th centuries and was restored in 1873 by C.T. Whitley. It is constructed of roughly coursed stone with a plain tile roof.

The church comprises a west tower, broad aisleless nave, south porch, and a chancel positioned towards the south side of the nave with a chapel to the north that projects beyond the nave line.

The west tower dates to the 14th or early 15th century and rises in two stages without a plinth. It has setback buttresses and battlements. Small chamfered rectangular louvred openings pierce each side of the upper stage and the west and south sides of the lower stage. The west doorway is moulded with a 2-centred arch, roll-and-fillet hoodmould, and carved heads as label stops.

The nave is 13th-century and plinthless. The south elevation has two buttresses and two 19th-century two-light windows in a 14th-century style with hoodmoulds. The north elevation also has two buttresses and two 14th-century two-light cusped windows, probably largely original—one featuring ogee-headed lights with quatrefoil, the other with intersecting tracery—both with hoodmoulds. There is no west window.

The south porch is 19th-century, built of small roughly squared coursed stone blocks, with a moulded 2-centred arched doorway and two 19th-century windows. The inner medieval doorway has a 2-centred arch with hollow chamfer.

The chancel is 13th-century but was rebuilt or altered in the 14th century, with three buttresses and no plinth. It has two cusped 19th-century two-light south windows with hoodmoulds and a 3-light east window with similar cusping. Beneath the east window is an inscription reading "Erected A.D. 1873 Edward Wilkinson Rector".

The north chapel is 13th-century, altered in the 14th century, with three buttresses and a gable. A 19th-century octagonal moulded stone chimney stands at the north-east corner. The chapel features a reticulated 2-light east window of 14th-century origin with hood mould, and similar probably restored north windows. A 19th-century 2-centred arched doorway with hoodmould opens from the west end.

The interior reveals the broad aisleless nave leading by separate eastern arches to both chancel and north chapel. A 14th-century two-bay chancel arcade comprises double-chamfered arches dying into walls with a central octagonal column with moulded base and renewed moulded capital. The broad chamfered chancel arch has cushioned chamfer-stops and is probably 14th-century, with renewed head dying into the wall. A 13th-century arch with chamfered imposts separates the nave from the chapel. The tower arch is also low with chamfered imposts.

The nave features a 14th-century cornice with roll-and-fillet moulding stopped at tie-beams with horizontally-carved heads. The chancel has a crown-post roof of later date with a central cambered hollow-chamfered tie-beam, chamfered collar purlin, and moulded octagonal crown-post. Short pendant posts support hollow-chamfered arch braces with solid spandrels and a moulded cornice. The chapel roof is a common-rafter roof with sous-laced collars and ashlar-pieces; the moulded cornice appears only to the north side. The tie-beam is moulded with pendant posts and solid arch-braces.

The church retains important medieval fittings: a 15th-century piscina and sedile on the south wall of the chancel, the latter with brattished cornice, moulded jambs, and vestigial arms; a trefoil-headed piscina on the south wall of the chapel; and a stone slab on the north wall of the nave carved with a skull, cross-bones, scythe, and tools. A pulpit of 1858 incorporates finely-carved traceried heads from a medieval screen.