Church Of St Lawrence

The Church of St Lawrence is an Anglican parish church largely dating to the 14th and 15th centuries, but extensively rebuilt in 1872 by J. Sedding, as noted by Nikolaus Pevsner. It is constructed of rubble stone with slate roofs to coped gables. The building comprises a nave, chancel, north aisle, south transept, south porch, and a west tower with a spire.

The west tower has diagonal buttresses to three offsets. It features a 19th-century west door beneath a three-light Perpendicular window, with a ringing chamber slit above. The tower is topped with rendered crenellations and an octagonal rubble spire. Stone steps lead to the ringers' door on the south side. The south side of the nave has a two-light Perpendicular window, the porch has a four-centred door within a square label, another two-light Perpendicular window, and a three-light reticulated window on the return to the transept. The chancel has two two-light windows of 14th-century design and a three-light east window featuring a cinquefoil within a circular tracery design, with angle buttresses. The north wall of the chancel is plain. The east end of the north aisle has a three-light Perpendicular window, while the north wall has three two-light windows matching those on the south side of the nave, culminating in a three-light window at the west end. A plinth runs around the building except to the north aisle.

Inside, the walls are limewashed, and the floors are tiled. A three-bay nave arcade is supported by four shafts separated by wave moulding, with an additional bay leading to the chancel; this pier is unusually wide. The arcade features two hollows and a half-round mould. The nave has a 19th-century barrel roof, while the chancel has a ceiled barrel roof with ribs and bosses. The north aisle has an unceiled barrel roof, and the south transept has a flat panelled roof. The chancel contains a 14th-century piscina and sedilia; opposite is a tomb recess with a moulded arch including a 14th-century ‘wave’ head. A broad squint provides a view from the south transept, which itself features an ogee-headed piscina. The tower arch is glazed. Furnishings include 19th-century pews, a good eagle lectern from Ashburton by Thomas Prideaux around 1510, a medieval pulpit also from Ashburton, a chalice foot, and panels with ogee arches. An octagonal granite font sits on four square piers; it has a good timber cover. An Early 15th-century de Bikebury brass and a slate slab, inscribed to ‘John and Jane Peirce’ (1589 and 1612), are set into the transept wall. Remains of the village stocks are located in the north aisle. Church records detail the 1872 restoration, which cost a total of £1750.8s.1d, including £90.12s.0d, and note the change of the main approach from the west to the east end of the church.