Church Of St Laurence

Church of St Laurence, Hilmarton

An Anglican parish church of late 12th-century and 15th-century origin, with a west tower added in 1840 by John Shaw Jr. The building underwent restoration between 1879 and 1881 by G.E. Street. It is constructed of ashlar and rubble stone with stone slate roofs and coped gables.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, north aisle, south porch, chancel and organ chamber. The 1840 west tower is built of ashlar in three stages with a plinth, angle buttresses, dripcourses, and a cornice with carved bosses and gargoyles. It has an embattled parapet and angle pinnacles. The bell-openings are paired 2-light designs in Perpendicular style with pointed arches and hoodmoulds. The second stage contains clock faces set in crocketed lozenges. The west front features a Tudor-style door beneath a 3-light window. A stair tower rises on the south side. An inscription band runs above the west window and continues on the south side, reading 'To the glory of God this tower was restored by a layman' and 'Anno Domini MDCCCXL JS'. Three shields are displayed within the inscription.

The south aisle has four windows and is constructed of rubble with an ashlar plinth and plain parapet. The windows are 3-light designs in Perpendicular style with hoodmoulds and buttresses between and at the angles. In the second bay stands a 19th-century ashlar embattled porch with a crocketed ogee-headed moulded doorway, quatrefoil-panelled seats, and a circa 1881 south door of four-centred design with fleurons and shafting to the moulded door case.

The lean-to north aisle has a plain parapet, squared rubble stone walls and buttresses between bays. Its windows are flat-headed Perpendicular designs: 2-light examples to the west and north, a blank bay, another 2-light opening, a small pointed door, followed by a 2-light and a 3-light window. An added north-east chapel has a single light to its east end.

The chancel is constructed of ashlar and contains reused 3-light Perpendicular style windows to the east, and one each to the north and south. The south side features a large projecting organ chamber added in 1881, built of ashlar with an embattled parapet and a flat-headed 3-light south window.

Interior: The nave retains a 15th-century six-bay wagon roof with moulded ribs and bosses. A late 12th-century north arcade of four bays contains round piers with trumpet scallop capitals; the western respond bears a dragon-head below. The south windows have rear arches dating to 1881. The tower arch features two-chamfer moulding and a 1896 timber screen by C.E. Ponting. Beneath the tower is a small pointed medieval tower door, suggesting that the 1840 exterior represents a recasing of an earlier structure.

The north aisle roof is a lean-to of 1881 design. Its north wall contains an ogee-headed cinquefoil cusped tomb recess. The chancel arch has two-hollow moulding and is fitted with a fine painted stone 15th-century screen featuring ogee cinquefoil-cusped heads to the centre arch and four lights on each side, with painted timber cresting. The chancel itself has an ornate 3-bay roof of 1881 and fine east wall decoration with stencil patterns and painted angels framing the east window. A seven-bay stone reredos with embossed tile panels stands on each side. The floor is laid with 1881 tiles. The south side opens fully to the organ chamber across a beam.

Stained glass windows of 1881 by Clayton and Bell occupy the chancel's east and north positions, with a patterned glass window of circa 1850–60 elsewhere. Chancel stalls date to 1881. The nave contains a 19th-century timber pulpit on a stone base, an 1881 brass and copper lectern, mid-19th-century pews, and four hatchments of the Poynder family. A south window displays patterned glass of circa 1850–60. Various late 19th-century Poynder wall tablets are mounted throughout. Three plaques of the later 17th century stand beneath the tower.

The north aisle contains a window of 1920 depicting St George and General Gordon, signed by W. Morris, a window of 1880, and a window of circa 1858 to Rev Fisher by Hardman. A fine east end wall monument with segmental pediment and skulls commemorates William Quintin, died 1651.