Church Of St Aldheim

The Church of St. Aldhelm is an Anglican parish church dating back to the 14th century, with a chancel rebuilt in 1842 and a restoration in 1876 by Scott Champion. It is constructed of dressed limestone with a Welsh slate roof and ceramic ridge cresting. The church consists of a nave, a west tower with a recessed spire, a chancel, and a north-east vestry.

The west doorway is of 19th-century design, featuring a highly ornamental hinge and a pointed arch above with plate tracery and trefoiled lancet windows. The three-stage 14th-century tower has diagonal buttresses, cusped lancets to the second stage, and an offset bell stage with pairs of cusped lancets and square hoodmoulds on each face. A string course with gargoyles supports the battlemented parapet, above which sits a recessed octagonal spire with a crocketed capping. The restored nave features offset buttresses, a string course at sill level, two 2-light Decorated style windows with hoodmoulds, and a reset early 18th-century bolection-moulded tablet. The chancel has a steeper roof pitch, two 2-light Decorated style windows with hoodmoulds, a reset 17th-century wall tablet with good lettering, and an east end with diagonal buttresses and a 4-light 19th-century window with flowing tracery and hoodmould. The north side of the chancel has one Decorated style window and a lean-to vestry with cusped lancets and a pointed doorway. The north side of the nave mirrors the south with two 2-light Decorated style windows. Coped verges and cross finials adorn the roof.

Inside, a late 19th-century carved screen with double doors separates the tower porch from the nave; the nave screen features fine floral carving and traceried panels in the tympanum of a 14th-century cyma and hollow-chamfered arch with attached shafts. The former roof line is visible at the west end of the nave. The nave incorporates a 5-bay 19th-century roof with tie beams and a cusped collar supported by foliated corbels. A cyma and hollow-chamfered chancel arch leads to a fine Arts and Crafts wooden chancel screen in Perpendicular style, with fan vaulting. The three-bay chancel roof has arch-braced collar trusses supported by foliated corbels. A pointed doorway provides access to the vestry, and a pointed archway leads to the organ chamber. The furniture includes a 1877 pulpit and font, 19th-century pews, a brass communion rail, and a carved wooden reredos in the same style as the screen. A 17th-century copper plaque on the south wall of the chancel commemorates Elener Seaman, who died in 1633, while a marble tablet on the north side is dedicated to Anne Fisher, who died in 1783. Other notable memorials include a classical marble to the Temple family of Bishopstrow House, 1840; classical marbles to Frances Elderton (died 1829) and Benjamin Everett (died 1816) in the porch; and a Gothic marble and stone tablet to the Griffith family, 1839. The east window contains stained glass by Hughes (1879), the north-east window by Kempe (1892), and unsigned glass to the Temple family, circa 1875. A Hanoverian Royal Arms hangs in the nave. The church was rebuilt in 1757 and prior to the 1840 chancel restoration, the east end was apsidal, potentially indicating Saxon origins.