Little Faringdon Church (Dedication Unknown)

Little Faringdon Church (dedication unknown)

A chapel-of-ease, now serving as a parish church, dating from the 12th century with significant extensions around 1200 and in the 14th century, followed by later additions and alterations. The building is constructed from uncoursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, featuring stone slate roofs with stepped coped verges and 19th-century stone crosses to the gables.

The plan comprises a nave with a west bellcote, chancel, north aisle, south porch, and north vestry. The nave retains mainly 12th-century fabric, with the original eaves line still visible on the north, south, and west sides, though the walls were heightened around 1500. The south side displays square-headed clerestory windows dating from around 1500, each with two round-headed lights and labels. Between these windows sits a 14th-century gabled porch with a double-chamfered pointed outer arch and hoodmould. A small rectangular window opens to the west side of the porch. The inner doorway dates from around 1500 and has a cambered form, though the crude rere-arch suggests this is a remodelling of an earlier opening. A Holy Water stoup stands to the right of the porch. An infilled 14th-century semi-circular arch to the right of the porch once led to a chapel; a 3-light 18th-century window has been inserted into this opening. The west side shows a narrow round-headed 12th-century window positioned below the original eaves cornice, and above it a 2-light square-headed window with fine Perpendicular tracery from around 1500. An early 20th-century stone bellcote with twin rectangular openings houses earlier bells.

The north aisle, a lean-to added around 1200, features plain paired lancets on either side of an infilled segmental-arched doorway, above which a truncated consecration cross remains visible. The chancel dates from the 12th century and is decorated with a plain corbel table and string course. The east end, buttressed at the centre with clasping buttresses at the angles, contains two early 13th-century lancets linked by a continuous hoodmould. The north and south sides of the chancel each have 12th-century round-headed windows flanking a central buttress. The north arrangement is now concealed by a 19th-century vestry, which is embattled and features two lancets on its north side and a cambered doorway on its east side.

The interior reveals a transitional 3-bay north arcade with deeply moulded round-headed arches. The spandrels and apexes of these arches are ornamented with carved heads. Circular piers with square bases and corner spurs support capitals carved with a mixture of stiff-leaf and late Romanesque flat-leaf designs. The corbelled responds also display similar carving. A contemporary double-chamfered pointed chancel arch features semi-circular responds with trumpet-scalloped capitals that appear earlier in style; the northern capital is combined with trefoils. Traces of a former screen remain visible across the arch. To the immediate left stands a 14th-century trefoil-headed piscina. A double-chamfered arch leading to the former south chapel has grotesque heads to its corbelled responds; the eastern respond shows traces of paint above. The 12th-century west window and aisle windows display stepped splays, whilst the west clerestory window has carved angels serving as label-stops. An infilled north doorway shows a semi-circular head internally. A probably 19th-century arch-braced roof spans three bays with carved bosses to the principal rafters and plastered-over common rafters; stone corbels bear simple armorial shields.

The chancel features a continuous string course and deeply-splayed window reveals. A 14th-century aumbry with a cusped head and ball-flower ornament to its pinnacles sits below the north-east window. A rectangular recess lies to the left of the altar, with a plain piscina positioned in the south wall. The roof is a plain trussed rafter construction, probably dating from the 19th century. A 12th-century font, tub-shaped, rests upon a later base.

The stained glass is predominantly late 19th and early 20th century, though the first window from the east in the nave contains a collection of medieval fragments, including a mid-13th-century roundel possibly from Salisbury Cathedral, alongside some early 17th-century Netherlandish pieces.

A notable wall memorial to Mary Vizard (died 1833) stands in the chancel on the south side. Executed by E. Gaffin of Regent Street, it depicts two mourning children flanking an urn.

Historical Context

Until 1864, Little Faringdon was a dependent chapelry of the Church of St. Matthew, Langford, when a new parish was formed. The early 13th-century remodelling of the chapel may be associated with the maintenance of a grange here by the Cistercian Abbey of Beaulieu. Although the abbey was originally intended to be founded at Little Faringdon, the community relocated to Beaulieu in 1204–5. The manor, however, remained in monastic hands, and the chapel likely formed part of its grange at this location.