Church Of St Lawrence

The Church of St. Lawrence is an Anglican parish church with a 13th-century foundation, though it was largely rebuilt in the mid-to-late 15th century. An early 16th-century clerestory and north porch were added, and the church was restored in 1882 by Waller. It is constructed from coursed and dressed Taynton stone, with roofs not visible from street level.

The church comprises a west tower with a spire, a nave with a clerestory and four-bay aisles, a north porch, north and south chancel chapels, a chancel, and a north vestry. The tower has three stages with offsets, stepped diagonal buttresses with angle pinnacles, and an embattled parapet. The eight-sided spire features roll mouldings around its edges and a gilt weathervane. The top stage has two-light belfry openings with a continuous hood and dripmould, a string course with carved heads, and a clock face on the west side. Below the clock face is a three-light Perpendicular window, topped with an arched splayed doorway and roll mouldings. The embattled nave parapet has straight-headed four-light cusped clerestory windows, and a sanctus bellcote sits on the east gable. The aisles and chancel chapels have plain parapets with three-light windows. The north porch has an embattled parapet with pinnacles and carved figures along its base, a square-headed doorway with carved stops, and a flat stone ceiling with a star rib pattern. A matching south doorway has a square hoodmould with carved square stops and foliage spandrels. The chancel has a pierced quatrefoil parapet in two rows set within lozenges and circles, and a five-light east window in two tiers with flattened cusped ogees and mouchettes to each light, arranged within an overall flattened arch shape. The single-storey north vestry has similar pierced parapet detailing to the east.

Inside, the nave has a 16th-century rafter roof comprising four bays with braced crossbeams carried on wooden shafts to the base of the clerestory windows. The five-bay arcade, including the chancel chapels, has piers of four shafts with diagonally set square capitals. The chancel roof mirrors the nave's structure, with gilded and painted bosses in the easternmost bay. The original vestry door on the north side is decorated with carved details. A piscina and credence shelf are located in the south-east corner; the rest of the wall is panelled to suit the style of the 1897 reredos. A 15th-century octagonal font stands at the west end, with a canopied niche above it on a pier of the arcade. Several fine medieval brasses are situated at the east end, along with marble monuments, including one by Nicholas Read to Mrs. Anne Simmons (died 1769) on the south side of the chancel.