Church Of St Lawrence

The Church of St. Lawrence is a medieval church, largely restored in 1862 by G.G. Scott and further altered between 1883 and 1887 by W. Bassett-Smith, who gothicised the aisles built in 1774. The building is constructed of coursed ironstone rubble and ashlar. It comprises a chancel, nave, north and south aisles extending over the first bay of the chancel, a south porch, and a west tower. The chancel has three-light Decorated windows with 19th-century tracery on its east and north and south sides. A blocked round-headed doorway is visible at the east end of the south aisle. The nave has a clerestory featuring 19th-century circular windows. A stone marking dated 1774 is situated below the second window from the west end of the north aisle. Original 18th-century lead rainwater heads and pipes remain. The church’s roof is covered with lead and concealed behind plain parapets. The three-stage, battlemented west tower has shallow offset buttresses separated by shafts, a pointed arch top frieze, and corner gargoyles. A small lancet window is located on the south side of the middle stage, with another lancet window at the west end of the ground floor, above a blocked doorway.

Inside the chancel, a piscina features a cusped arch, and a three-seat sedilia has 19th-century cusped heads. Double hollow-chamfered arches are present on the north side of the west bay of the chancel; the inner arch rests on corbels with fleurons, formerly framing a tomb, of which a cut-off end survives on the east side, with a blocked window above. A double-chamfered arch is featured in the corresponding bay on the south side, with the inner arch resting on polygonal responds and a blocked square window above. The double-chamfered chancel arch has an inner arch supported by polygonal responds. The nave arcades consist of four bays with double-chamfered arches resting on octagonal piers. The east window is by Evans Bros. of Shrewsbury and commemorates a Shropshire vicar who died in 1858. A parish chest is also present. A monument to Cilena l'Anson Bradley, who died in 1726 aged 12 years, is located in the north choir vestry; it features a bust in a square niche with a draped round arch head supported on pilasters, a draped apron with an inscription and fringed edge, and is signed John Hunt, Northampton on the base of the bust. Numerous other late 18th- and early 19th-century wall monuments are also visible.