Parish Church Of St Paul

The parish church of St Paul dates from the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations in the 13th and 15th centuries, and a late 19th-century restoration including a rebuilt chancel, and a 20th-century vestry. The church is constructed of rubble, partly rough rendered, with freestone dressings. The nave roof is leaded, and the chancel has concrete tiles.

The church comprises a west tower, a south porch, a south chapel, a nave, a chancel, and a vestry. The two-stage west tower is rendered with diagonal buttresses that rise as corner pinnacles and a polygonal stair turret at the south east corner, capped with a pyramidal roof. The first stage of the tower has a two-light perpendicular window on the west side and a smaller window to the south, both under plain drip moulds with carved stops. The second stage has one two-light perpendicular window on each side, with louvres except for the west window, which is blank. The tower has a pierced quatrefoil parapet and gargoyles at the corners.

The nave has three bays and a clerestory, but no aisles. The north elevation is rendered and features three windows: the lower two are two-light windows with curvilinear tracery, the third is a plain, square-headed, two-light window under a drip mould. The clerestory on both north and south sides has three two-light perpendicular windows under a plain parapet.

The south porch and adjoining south chapel are single-storey. The porch has a heavily moulded doorway and a parapet that mirrors the tower’s style, and strangely, abuts a mullion of a clerestory window. The chapel has a three-light lancet window and a battlemented parapet. Within the porch is a 12th-century south doorway with spiral, fluted shafts, scalloped capitals in plain rebates, and an inner arch with a double zigzag design. The outer arch has a crenellated frieze under billets and zigzags. A door from the porch to the chapel has a small, mutilated single lancet window above.

The chancel was rebuilt in 1886 with a steep pitch, which brings the chancel arch within the building’s footprint. It has a two-light decorated east window and a small quatrefoil window above. To the south are two plain two-light perpendicular windows with a priest’s door between, which has lost its porch. The vestry, added in 1907, also has a steep pitch and a large three-light north window.

The interior features strongly moulded chancel and tower arches, and cusped rear-arches to two ground floor north windows. A rood stair has a steep, ogee curved doorway under a drip mould surmounted by a grotesque head corbel, and a plain door above. A timber rood screen from 1938 sits above the corbel. A similar screen is within the rebated and chamfered arch to the south chapel. A three-light lancet window has heraldic glass painted by W.R. Eginton around 1825. A fine perpendicular stone pulpit features paired decorated blank arches surmounted by an ornate frieze. A 14th-century circular font is composed of a pier and capital. An oak plank south door is present. Large churchwardens arms dated 1831 were painted by T. Penny of Bristol.