Church Of St Anne

LACOCK BOWDEN HILL ST 96 NW (south side) 3/19 Church of St Anne GV II

Anglican parish church, 1856-7 by S.B. Gabriel of Bristol for Capt J.N. Gladstone of Bowden Park. Squared ironstone rubble with ashlar dressings, stone slate roofs and coped gables. Nave, chancel and north porch in Early English style with Romanesque style north east tower, gabled with shingled pyramid roof. Three- window nave with flat buttresses, heavy string course, moulded eaves and 2-light plate-traceried windows. North porch has battered plinth flush on west side with west wall. West window of 2-light centre with single lights each side flanked by blank windows, to give row of seven pointed arches, taller in centre. Shafting between arches is missing. Gable vesica. Chancel has heavy corbel table, 3 lancets to south, one to north, clasping flat buttresses and east end 3 pointed lights in 5-arch arcade. Foiled circle in gable. Three-stage north east tower with clasping flat buttresses to bottom stage, ashlar coping between stages, second stage with recessed walling, corbel table and small arched light each side. The gabled top stage is heavily ornate with 3 stepped lights each side, the shafting missing and Evangelist symbols as gargoyles at each corner. Coped gables. Interior is ashlar lined with much finely lettered inscription. Nave has good windbraced 6-bay roof, moulded chancel arch with leaf capitals, stone pulpit and font. Chancel has 3-bay roof with thin windbracing, encaustic tile floor, alabaster reredos over marble dado, Purbeck shafting to windows and moulded north arch to vestry. East window glass signed Warrington 1857. North wall brass to Mrs Gladstone (d 1862). Two nave stained glass windows of c1863 to Captain and Mrs Gladstone, west window of 1887. Various brass plaques on south wall to Merewether family of Bowden Hill House. (N. Pevsner, Wiltshire, 1975 120)

Listing NGR: ST9375867932