Church Of St Leonard

Church of St Leonard

This Anglican parish church was rebuilt between 1866 and 1876 by the architect T.H. Wyatt on the site of a medieval church. It is constructed of limestone ashlar with a tiled roof.

The church follows a Decorated style design with a plan comprising a west tower, nave with south aisle, chancel with south chapel, and north porch. The gabled porch features diagonal buttresses, a moulded pointed opening with attached shafts bearing foliated capitals, quatrefoils to the sides, and coped verges. The nave contains a 3-light window to the right and two 2-light windows to the left, all with geometric tracery and buttresses with offsets. The chancel has 2-light, 3-light and single geometric windows, a quatrefoil frieze, and a 3-light geometric east window with hoodmould ending in foliated terminals, diagonal buttresses, and a single-light window to the right on the south side. The south chapel displays 3-light east windows with hoodmould and angle buttresses. An attached vestry has a hipped roof with a 2-light gablet and porch with pointed chamfered doorway. The south aisle contains four 2-light Perpendicular-style windows with buttresses, a 3-light west window with set-back buttresses.

The five-stage tower has set-back buttresses carried up to gablets at the bell stage, string courses, and a west doorway with moulded pointed opening, attached shafts and aedicule. Above this is a 4-light geometric window. Gilded clock faces appear on the west and north sides at the third stage. Single-light windows face south. The bell stage has 2-light louvred windows on all sides and a quatrefoil frieze below the battlemented parapet, which is furnished with gargoyles. An octagonal stair turret is attached to the north-east corner, featuring a roll-moulded pointed doorway and chamfered loopholes to a projecting porch at the base. The turret has a conical roof with gablets containing ogee lancets.

The interior porch has a scissor rafter roof, stone benches, and a moulded pointed inner doorway with double doors. The nave features a good 4-bay hammer-beam roof with curved windbracing and exposed rafters, plastered walls, and a polychrome tiled floor. The four-bay south aisle arcade has piers with foliated capitals and moulded pointed arches, with an arch-braced collar-truss aisle roof featuring collar trusses to half-bays and an organ in the west bay. The stair turret projects into the west end of the nave on a corbel, and a tall pointed tower arch marks the transition. The chancel arch sits on short marble corbel shafts with foliated decoration. The chancel has ashlar walls and a pointed barrel-vaulted ceiling with panelling, Biblical inscriptions in gothic script to the frieze, and rere-arches to the windows. The south chapel is separated from the chancel by a pointed door and arch with wrought iron gates and screens, and features a panelled wagon roof and pointed doorway to the vestry.

Fittings include 19th-century pews, a 12th-century stone cylindrical font at the west end, and a fine 18th-century brass candelabra in the chancel. Stained glass includes a north-west nave window by F.C. Eden (1897), south aisle windows by W.C. Taylor (1882), and a good unsigned east window possibly by Lavers and Barraud. A large stone recumbent figure, probably of a bishop and possibly dating to the 13th century, lies in the nave. Wall tablets include marble monuments to Rev Ralph Ord (died 1855) and a signed work by Osmund of Sarum.

The rebuilding was paid for by the Marchioness of Westminster of Fonthill.