Church Of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

A parish church located on the west side of School Lane, the building dates primarily to the 12th century with a 13th-century spire. The south porch was added around 1525, and the church underwent restoration in 1872 and 1883. Construction materials include flint and rubble with a plain tiled roof, a brick porch, and a shingle spire.

The church comprises a nave with north aisle, chancel with north chapel, south tower, and south porch. Windows are largely of heavily restored 16th-century Perpendicular style, with the exception of a single round-headed west light in the north aisle, a south-west lancet in the aisle, and three lancets on the south wall of the chancel. A blocked western window and remnants of an east window featuring triple round-headed lancets remain, with the central one raised. The chancel and chapel feature diagonal buttresses, while the chapel north wall has three offset buttresses. Two hipped dormers light the north aisle, and blocked northern and western doorways are evident.

The south porch displays diapered brickwork on a weathered and moulded plinth with a bargeboarded gable. The south door, surrounded by a double hollow chamfered frame, is dated by graffiti to at least 1596 and retains strap hinges. The south tower contains a blocked western doorway and blocked eastern arch, with an angle vice to the west and a broach spire above.

Interior Features

The nave arcades comprise four round unmoulded arches on octagonal piers with scalloped capitals; the central pier is doubled in width. The roof is plastered with two crown posts. A hollow-moulded doorway to the south provides access to an external vice. The chancel arch is plain and chamfered. The lean-to north aisle features a pointed keel-moulded arch to the north chapel, supported on a moulded impost with carved-leaf corbels.

The chancel contains a three-bay arcade to the chapel with pointed keel-rolled arches on round piers with square abaci chamfered at the corners. The piers are decorated with paired and stiffly upright debased acanthus motifs, dating the work to around 1200 and deriving stylistically from work at Canterbury Cathedral dated 1175. Remnants of a 12th-century triple east window reveal jambs and capitals of missing attached shafts on either side of a 16th-century replacement east window. The chancel roof is partially plastered wagon construction. A blocked arched opening to the south tower, featuring double hollow chamfering and a role-moulded doorway, is visible. The south tower contains a blocked eastern arch with piscina, which once led to an apse.

The north chapel features an arcade on the north wall comprising four keel-moulded arches on free-standing shafts with water-holding bases and carved leaf capitals. A discontinuous string course decorated with cinquefoils runs along the wall, with evidence of four blocked lancet windows to the north, subsequently replaced by 16th-century windows. The east window was originally of lancets but has been blocked and replaced. The roof is partially plastered and partially panelled wagon construction.

Fittings and Furnishings

An angle piscina in the north chapel features a frieze carried back and over from the eastern respond of the chancel arcade, decorated with two roll-moulded arches and a central shaft. The capital employs the same distinguishing carved motif used in the chancel arcade, a design also found at Doddington, Milstead, Frinsted, and Murston churches. An aumbrey is set into the chancel east wall. A 13th-century painted reredos depicting the Crucifixion stands in the chapel. A restored 15th-century rood screen is now stored in the north chapel. A 17th-century octagonal pulpit and a brass chandelier of twelve sticks with a central torch finial, inscribed "Bapchild 1746", represent later furnishings. Eighteenth and 19th-century box pews are present throughout.

Fragmentary medieval and 17th-century wall paintings survive, including a double orb and the date 1989 above the chancel arch. A single Perpendicular niche in the nave sits over the central arcade pier. Fragments of medieval glass and tiles remain in the north chapel. The east window in the chancel was glazed by Warrington in 1865.