Church Of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

Parish church built in 1650 for Thomas Pury, with subsequent alterations in 1825, 1864 by T. Fulljames, and 1893. The church replaces a medieval building on a different site that was burnt in 1643 during a Civil War skirmish. This is a rare church built during the Commonwealth period for Presbyterian worship.

The building is constructed with random rubble walls and larger stone quoins, with ashlar windows. The chancel is faced with rock-faced squared stone in irregular-height courses with ashlar dressings. The roof is tiled. The plan comprises a four-bay nave, two-bay chancel, north porch, and organ chamber, oriented north to south.

The west elevation presents a gable to the road with a single-storey gabled porch containing double doors with two fielded panels each and a flat stone lintel. Headstones are set against the gable on each side, weathered on the left and inscribed with Esther Morris, died 1765, on the right. A further headstone dated 1694 is set against the gable on the left. A sunken square with quatrefoil above the door leads to a parapet gable with a cross-gablet apex. Slit windows appear on each return. Above the porch is a three-light mullion window with trefoil heads to each light, set under a segmental arch with hoodmould and relieving arch. The parapet gable has an ashlar bellcote at the apex with an iron weathervane dated 1660 in the tail.

On the east side, a blocked door appears on the right, with three three-light mullioned windows to its left. These windows have trefoil heads to each light under a flat head with hoodmould and stone voussoirs above. A cross-gablet apex tops the parapet gable on the left. The chancel is slightly set back and contains two two-light windows with Perpendicular tracery and hoodmoulds, with a buttress between them and a further diagonally-set corner buttress. The parapet gable to the chancel carries a cross-gablet apex and stone cross.

The interior contains some memorial slabs in the nave floor, including one to Robert Pury, died 1662, son of Thomas Pury who built the church. The nave is fitted with dado panelling, with double doors to the porch containing two panels each and horizontal boarding on the back. A heavy timber frame is supported on either side by wooden Corinthian pilasters, with Hebrew lettering painted on the frieze above. Above this is a square panel with scrolls each side and an ornamental top. Three tie beams cross the nave supporting a scissor-braced collar rafter roof with the ghost of a collar purlin.

The chancel is lined with linen fold panels in a late 19th-century frame forming dado panelling behind the communion table. A 17th-century pulpit of semi-octagonal form stands on a stone base, with ornamental timber panels and a gadrooned cornice, complete with a wrought-iron candleholder. It is said to have come from Holy Trinity Church, Gloucester. The font is circular with a bowl featuring alternate cherubs' heads and acanthus leaves, a fluted stem, and a square base approached by two stone steps. Some good 18th or early 19th-century monuments are present, particularly the Holder monument by the pulpit. Benefactions boards are located on the north wall and in the porch, with the latter being a stone tablet.

A medieval church originally stood on a different site until it was burnt in 1643 during a Civil War skirmish. The new church, initially a single-cell building forming the present nave, was built by order of Parliament in 1650 for Presbyterian worship. In 1825 a schoolroom was added to the south, along with a gallery and porch. In 1864 the plaster ceiling was removed and the windows replaced. The wooden steeple was replaced by a stone bellcote in 1875, and the chancel and organ chamber were built in 1893-94, replacing the schoolroom. The gallery was removed at the same time. A vestry was apparently intended in the angle between chancel and organ but was never built. The nave roof is older than the church itself and may, like the pulpit, have come from Holy Trinity, Gloucester. The surround to the north door appears to be the former reredos. Thomas Pury, who built the church, lived at The Grove and is buried in the churchyard.