Church of St Swithun

Church of St Swithun

A former priory church, now parish church, dating from the 12th century with additions and alterations from the 13th and 14th centuries, and a comprehensive restoration around 1885 by Bodley and Garner. The building is constructed of random and coursed rubble limestone with a stone slate roof.

The church comprises a nave with north porch, crossing tower, transepts and chancel. The 12th-century north doorway features two orders of chevron-enriched round arches, two jamb column shafts with scalloped capitals, and a billeted hoodmould with beast-head stops. A carved 12th-century capital has been reset in a niche above this doorway. The early 14th-century porch has a pointed arch set within an offset-buttressed parapet gabled wall. To the right of the porch is a 12th-century round-arched window. To the left are two 14th-century Decorated nave windows and a larger 15th-century window with Perpendicular tracery.

The west end has a parapet gabled wall with a 12th-century doorway matching that on the north side, and a 15th-century Perpendicular west window above it. Flat clasping corner buttresses flank this elevation. The south side of the nave contains three round-arched windows and two blocked doorways, both designed identically to the north door and formerly providing access to the cloister. The weathermoulding of the lean-to cloister roof survives on the nave and south transept, with corbel blocks also remaining on the south transept.

The south transept has a single round-arched 12th-century window on its south and west walls, and a blocked round arch on the east side indicating a former apsed chapel (its roofline marked by weathermoulding above). A 15th-century four-centred arched doorway on the west side of the transept provided further cloister access. The north transept displays a 14th-century Decorated west window and a large 15th-century Perpendicular north window, with flat clasping buttresses reinforced by 19th-century offset buttresses.

The chancel features a 14th-century east window with intersecting tracery and flat buttresses flanking the side walls, which are lit by 14th-century Decorated windows.

The substantial rectangular crossing tower has a 12th-century lower stage with a probably late 13th-century belfry containing two lancet openings with timber louvres on each face except the north. The tower has a crenellated parapet and a square stair turret in the north-west corner that rises above the tower, with narrow lancets on its north side. A tall hipped roof replaces a spire that was blown down in the early 18th century.

Interior

The nave has plaster and rubble-faced walls. The 12th-century doorways have segmental inner arches with deep splays to the 12th-century windows. The roof is of wagon construction. Two 14th-century mortuary recesses appear in the south nave wall, one altered by the insertion of a pointed-arched rood loft doorway. Stairs to the rood loft emerge at a matching pointed-arched doorway, with a small round-arched opening lighting the stair.

The broad round-arched crossing connects to narrower arches serving the transepts. While the western crossing piers have been rebuilt, the eastern piers are original, one displaying fine floral carving to its capital. Each pier has twin shafts to each face flanked by small buttress projections. Some remnants of medieval painting survive on the chancel arch, which has a studded hoodmould with beast-head terminals. The transept roofs are of flat beamed construction, with a restored passage between the south transept and chancel. The chancel has a timber panelled roof and marble floor resulting from Bodley's restoration.

Attached column shafts in the chancel are remains of the former two-bay cross-vaulted roof. The large shafts to each wall have carved capitals—the south depicting the Nativity and the north the washing of Christ's feet. A carved string course at sill level matches that over a segmental-arched 12th-century north aumbry. A reset carved tympanum depicting Adam, Eve and the Serpent is positioned above a further south aumbry, with a double-bowled trefoil-headed piscina to its right.

Furnishings include a 19th-century timber panelled reredos and choir stalls, a 17th-century communion rail with turned balusters, a 20th-century timber pulpit, and an early 18th-century stone pedestal font.

Memorials and Royal Arms

The south chancel wall contains memorials including one to Mrs Eleanor Rishton (died 1765) with Ionic fluted columns and a broken pediment with escutcheon, and a Greek sarcophagus monument by Greenways of Bristol to Robert Sandford (died 1804). At the west end of the nave is a fine memorial to John Holbrow (died 1780) featuring a draped urn on a delicately elaborated console bracket, with an obelisk background adorned with crossed inverted torches and a crown in heaven. Royal arms hang over the west door. The west window contains stained glass of 1922 by Morris and Company.

Historical Context

Originally the church formed part of an Augustinian priory founded by Roger de Berkeley between 1121 and 1129. Remains of the priory buildings and an earlier Saxon church stand to the south and west.