Church Of St Laurence

Church of St Laurence, Downton

This is an Anglican parish church of cruciform plan with a south porch. The building represents multiple periods of construction and alteration: the nave dates from the mid-11th century, the transepts from the 13th century, the chancel and major remodelling from the 14th century, with 17th-century restoration, 18th-century alterations, and documented restorations undertaken in 1812 by D. A. Alexander and in 1860 by T. H. Wyatt. The structure is built of brick and flint with limestone dressings and has a tiled roof.

The south porch is gabled with a datestone bearing "1648" above the door and features a cyma-moulded Tudor-arched doorway. The nave displays a 2-light square-headed Perpendicular window to the left of the porch and three 4-light chamfered mullioned windows to the right, all with hoodmoulds. To the right is a 14th-century pointed door with a hollow-moulded doorway and canopy. The parapet dates from the 18th century and has brick panels with saddleback coping.

The 13th-century south transept has angle buttresses, a lancet window to the west, three stepped lancets to the south, and on the east side a roll-moulded lancet and an unusual 2-light Perpendicular window. A cartouche dated 1743 is present. Both south and north sides of the chancel have three 2-light geometric windows and feature good gargoyles. The chancel's east end has a large 19th-century 5-light geometric window with hoodmould and diagonal buttresses. The north side of the chancel has a pointed doorway with continuous moulding and an octagonal stair turret at the angle with the north transept; there are also pointed doorways and loops. The north transept has two 2-light Perpendicular windows to the north and a lancet with a pointed chamfered doorcase to the west.

The north aisle, which lies under a catslide roof, displays three pairs of cusped lights and one 3-light 19th-century window. The west end has a large 4-light geometric window and a Tudor-arched moulded doorcase with heraldic terminals; the north aisle here has a 2-light cusped window while the south aisle has a 2-light Perpendicular window.

The 2-stage crossing tower is built of flint and limestone bands with 2-light round-arched windows with hoodmoulds and offset diagonal buttresses. It retains a late 18th-century battlemented parapet and pinnacles, which were preserved when the tower was lowered in 1860. The roof has coped verges and ridge-cresting.

The interior shows considerable architectural detail. The inner south doorway has a continuous roll-moulded pointed arch and a restored ledged door. The nave comprises five bays: the three western bays date from the late 11th century and feature cylindrical columns, square abaci, and scalloped capitals to pointed arches, while the two eastern bays have taller pointed arches. The roof is an arch-braced collar truss of six bays. The crossing has fine 13th-century double-chamfered arches with fillet mouldings and stiff-leaf capitals to grouped-shaft responds.

The Lady Chapel in the south transept has a Medieval braced tie-beam roof. The north transept similarly has a roof of this type featuring hollow-chamfered timbers, with a trefoiled piscina on its east wall and an ogee arch to the north. The chancel has a 19th-century 6-bay tie-beam roof on foliated corbels, a Tudor-arched squint through to the Lady Chapel, and a restored 13th-century sedilia with four arches and a shuttered window to its south side.

The church contains notable fittings including a 13th-century Purbeck marble font at the west end of the south aisle and a wall painting on the west wall possibly depicting The Flight into Egypt. A fine 18th-century hexagonal pulpit sounding board, now used as a table, stands at the west end. The chancel holds a fine group of mid-18th-century marble monuments with obelisks dedicated to the Feversham family, executed by Peter and Thomas Scheemakers, and the Lady Chapel contains good tablets including a fine Baroque marble to Charles Duncombe, died 1711. Some 14th-century glass survives in the north aisle. The 19th-century glass includes a fine east window by E. Frampton of London, installed in 1896 and 1901.