Church Of St Leonard

The Church of St Leonard is a church with a long history, largely dating to the 12th and 14th centuries, with significant rebuilding carried out by H.J. Tollit and E. Dolby in 1877, and a 15th-century west tower. The structure is built of flint rubble with limestone ashlar quoins, dressings, and bands. The north aisle is of coursed and dressed limestone rubble, while the tower is limestone ashlar. The roof is tiled with decorative ridge tiles.

The church comprises a chancel, a north transept, an aisled nave, a south porch, and a west tower. Early 14th-century corner buttresses with gablets flank a Reticulated east window, which now features 19th-century mullions. The south-east aisle has two Decorated-style windows and one 15th-century window of four lights with a central colonette. The north-east aisle has an early 14th-century Decorated window. The north transept features a tall two-light window. The nave north aisle incorporates two-light, trefoil-headed windows. The south aisle has 15th-century style ogee-headed windows, offset buttresses, gargoyles, and a 14th-century two-light west window. A pointed chamfered doorway leads to the south porch, and a moulded pointed doorway provides access to 19th-century double doors.

The 15th-century west tower incorporates offset corner buttresses, a pointed moulded doorway to late 19th-century double doors, a three-light Perpendicular window above, two-light and one-light windows, a moulded string course and cornice, and an embattled parapet. A stair turret is located in the north-east corner.

Inside, the church features a reredos with elaborate gilt tracery by C.E. Kempe. There are capitals with volutes, a portion of a cable-moulded shaft at the west end of the south aisle, and a 13th-century carved head on the south wall of the chancel. A 12th-century arch with a diapered tympanum is present in the vestry, originally from the north wall of the nave. Two 15th-century arches to the south chapel have shafted responds and a central pier with capitals. The south chapel contains a brass chandelier (acquired in 1778), an 18th-century chest, a wall tablet, a wall tablet to William Buckland, who died in 1597, and a Harding family slab set into the floor, dated 1691. The nave contains a brass depicting Jerem Ewes, who died in 1587, a late 19th-century brass lectern, an octagonal marble font with a cover from 1897, and a wood pulpit from 1874. A late 19th-century roof completes the interior. A 14th-century four-bay arcade with double-chamfered arches on octagonal piers leads to the south aisle, which includes a 14th-century tomb recess. Stained glass windows, crafted by Kempe, are located in the east window, south chapel windows (1887), west window (1896), and three south aisle windows (1902). A north window depicting ‘St. Paul in Athens’ is by Atkinson of Newcastle.