Church Of St Catherine

Church of St Catherine

This parish church at Staverton dates from the 13th and 14th centuries, with possible 15th-century work. The building was significantly altered in the 18th century, with datestones recording work in 1712 and 1735. A vestry was added in 1865, and the church underwent major restoration between 1870 and 1884 by H.M. Townsend, with further work by Prothero in 1897.

The structure comprises a nave and chancel not divided structurally, with a south porch, tower, north transept, and vestry. Construction materials vary across the building: the tower and north transept are built in coursed, roughly squared ashlar stone, while the nave incorporates irregular-bond brickwork to the south wall and coursed stone to other parts. The chancel features random rubble with ashlar dressings, and the vestry is constructed in English garden wall bond brickwork. The roof is covered in stone slates throughout.

The south front presents a nave wall with an angled buttress to the left and a stone base supporting a brick arch. A carving reading 'MG 1735' is visible on one brick near a wall monument to J. Togwell from 1807. A two-light window with deeply splayed reveal lights the nave, with the top of the wall to the right rebuilt in the late 19th century. The timber-framed south porch sits on an ashlar plinth, with two panels of framing rising to a gable. The framing is rendered infill with narrow panels each side opening in the gable, a cambered tie-beam spanning above, close studding above that, and plain barge boards. The adjacent tower features angle buttresses with wide projection, a three-light window and a two-light window above, a stone lintel, stone louvres, a sundial, and a crenellated parapet. A splay on the right marks the remains of a stair turret. The right return displays 17th and mid-18th-century headstones at the tower base, with two wall monuments above—one embellished with drapery, cherubs' heads and an hourglass, the other with a gadrooned base and plaque. A single-light belfry opening matches the south elevation, with a stone rainwater chute and crenellated parapet. The crenel inscription 'WL/ RH Ch.War. 1712' is visible on one stone. The chancel projects from the right return, featuring a 1904 wall monument and a two-light window matching those in the nave. The east end of the chancel has a two-light window, a parapet gable, and a cross-gablet apex with a cross.

The north face shows a plain wall to the left and a lean-to brick vestry with a reset two-light window on the left return and a three-panel door with vertical framing and blind tracery heads, all beneath a cambered brick arch. The transept projects to the right with a plinth and three buttresses on the left return, where a fourth buttress was removed when the vestry was built. A two-light window sits between the second and third buttresses. The gable features a plinth and two-light window, with walls extending into buttresses on each side; disturbance on the left suggests a projecting buttress may have been removed. The gable face is finished in stone slate. The right return mirrors the left but has four buttresses. A late 20th-century boiler house and chimney have been added against the north nave wall, which otherwise presents a plain face. The west face shows a plinth and angled buttress, with the centre wall rebuilt up to a three-light mullioned window featuring four-centred heads to each light, a stone lintel, and a relieving arch. A parapet gable with a cross-gablet apex crowns this elevation.

The interior porch contains a boarded door with an arched head leading to the tower, and a double boarded door with a four-centred head and moulded surround gives access to the nave. The nave walls are rendered. A blocked opening in the north wall has a semi-circular early 18th-century arch to the tower with plain impost blocks; a cambered arch opens to the north transept. The nave roof spans three bays with crown-posts, a collar purlin, collar rafters with slight braces, a moulded wallplate, and tie-beams. The north transept roof is also three bays, with two plain beams and a Jacobethan-style moulded plaster ceiling between. The south transept, set under the tower, features a piscina and springers for a vault on the south side only. The chancel has a late 19th-century king-post roof.

Wall monuments include an unusual example from 1627 to Reverend T. Banester and a 1772 marble monument to Reverend H. Windowe with scrolls each side and a pediment. Five further wall monuments date from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, notably one to E.J. Luttrell (1848) depicting a figure rising from a split sarcophagus greeted by an angel with a crown. An octagonal timber pulpit on a stem features blind tracery to its sides. The top of the tower was removed in 1712, with the stone reused to remake the west end of the nave. A gallery was removed in the late 19th century. The main door was relocated to the west end of the nave in 1872 but returned to the south side with its porch in 1897.

The church forms a group with the Old Manor House and Staverton Lea Farmhouse, both nearby properties.