Church Of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

This is a parish church of 13th-century origin with an early 14th-century tower, substantially restored in 1873 by F.S. Waller. The building is constructed of random rubble lias with limestone dressings and ashlar, under a clay plain tile roof.

The church comprises a nave without aisles, a south tower, a south chapel, north and south porches, and a chancel. The south doorway features a moulded 4-centred arch with quatrefoil enriched spandrels and a plank door. The late 15th-century ashlar Perpendicular south porch has diagonal corner buttresses and a crenellated parapet. Its doorway is similarly moulded with quatrefoil enriched spandrels, and above is an image niche within a row of trefoil-headed panels. The porch retains open-framed gates, internal stone seats, and an octagonal shaft for a stoup. The west porch wall contains a pair of trefoil-headed lancets.

The south nave wall displays a Perpendicular 3-light rectilinear traceried window with buttressing, alongside an early 14th-century 2-light window with Y-tracery. Between the porch and tower is a 15th-century 3-light window with trefoil-headed lancets in a square-headed opening set in a recess. The north nave wall appears to have been restored in the 19th century. It has two 2-light Decorated windows flanking a plain pointed 13th-century doorway with a heavy plank door. The late 15th-century timber-framed north porch has trefoil-headed side openings above internal wooden seats, carved bargeboards to a crown post roof with cusped-arched bracing to tie-beams, and a 19th-century ashlar chimney mounted at the eaves to the right of the doorway. The west nave wall has set-back buttresses and a 14th-century 3-light window with string courses above and below.

The tower is of three stages with diagonal offset buttresses to the lower stage and a 14th-century south window with Y-tracery. The middle stage has chamfered square-headed openings. The 15th-century ashlar belfry contains large 2-light Perpendicular openings on each face with stone louvres. A moulded crenellated parapet with a moulded string course below links animal gargoyles on each tower face.

The south chapel has a late 13th-century south priest's doorway (restored in the 19th century) in a buttressed wall. A 15th-century 3-light window with a 19th-century relieving arch stands to its left. The chapel's east wall is gabled with a parapet and contains a 2-light Decorated window with quatrefoil tracery. The east chancel wall is similarly gabled, buttressed, and parapet-topped, with a 3-light Decorated window. Two 2-light north chancel windows were restored in the 19th century.

The interior is plastered with a long tall nave featuring a wagon roof, panelled at the east end with a corbel table to the south and moulded tie-beams. A 19th-century restored chancel arch separates the nave from the chancel. Plain chamfered 14th-century arches open to the east and north sides of the tower. Between the chancel and south chapel is a 2-bay late 13th-century pointed arched arcade with a circular central column having a moulded capital and base. The altar is on a raised 19th-century tiled floor. The south chapel roof spans four bays with arched-braced collar-trusses and arched wind bracing.

A late 13th-century south piscina serves the chancel and south chapel. A 14th-century mortuary recess in the north chancel wall holds a medieval tiled shelf, one tile bearing the Berkeley arms. The interior contains 19th-century choir stalls and pews, a 19th-century hexagonal-fronted timber pulpit with pierced tracery, and a 14th-century octagonal stone font with a richly panelled bowl and buttressed pedestal.

Three notable memorials survive. On the north nave wall is a Provincial Baroque memorial with richly carved and undercut border to an oval inscription panel, surmounted by a bust flanked by open inscribed books, commemorating Richard Littleton (died 1713). To its left is a memorial with a black marble oval bearing a white inscription panel, surmounted by a rose-garlanded funereal urn, by John Pearce of Frampton, to John Fryer (died 1783). On the south nave wall is an obelisk-shaped memorial also by John Pearce, featuring a portrait bust with urn top and weeping willow tree, commemorating John Fryer (died 1799).

The tower dominates the flat surrounding landscape.