Church Of St Edmund

Church of St Edmund

A redundant church built around 1870, constructed in dressed sandstone with reused earlier masonry visible in the south wall, and featuring sandstone ashlar dressings throughout. The building has moulded and chamfered plinths on all sides except the south, and is roofed in slate with pierced terracotta cresting.

The church comprises a polygonal west baptistry, a four-bay nave with north aisle and south vestry, a chancel, and a south porch. The baptistry is a five-bay structure rising from a moulded plinth with diagonal buttressing. Its pointed west window is a single foiled light with Decorated tracery, flanked by similar smaller windows and a foiled lancet in the north bay. The north aisle features a diagonal buttress and a tall pointed western window with curvilinear tracery beneath a hoodmould.

The south porch is gabled with a pointed arch beneath a corbelled hoodmould, while the south door sits beneath a two-centred arch with a corbelled coved hoodmould and strap hinges. A bellcote at the west end of the nave, standing on a moulded plinth, has a tall trefoil-headed gabled opening beneath a pyramidal roof with gablets to north and south. The nave's south wall contains three pointed windows of paired foiled lights beneath hoodmoulds, with offset buttresses between them; the westernmost rests on reset corbel heads. A half-octagonal vestry on a high moulded plinth at the east end features a square-headed east door and a foiled lancet on the south. An octagonal spire with finial crowns the east end. The north aisle's eastern window contains three stepped foiled lights. Remaining windows throughout feature paired lights with curvilinear tracery or quatrefoils, with offset buttresses between and a diagonal buttress at the east end. A foiled roundel beneath a hoodmould marks the east end. The north side of the chancel is partly masked by a pent building on a chamfered roll-moulded plinth, with a square-headed shouldered doorway on the east side and a quatrefoil light to the north. Chancel windows are foiled lancets beneath hoodmoulds, while the east end displays a three-light curvilinear window beneath a corbelled hoodmould, with reset corbel heads above. Roll-moulded sill bands and diagonal buttresses continue around the structure. Eaves cornices frame coped gables with terminal gablets and crosses in wrought iron on the baptistry, broken terracotta on the nave, stone on the porch, and stone on the chancel.

Interior

The tall pointed baptistry arch features two orders dying into the sides. An arcade of three double-chamfered pointed arches on round piers with moulded capitals spans the baptistry. The fourth bay forms a pew of the Tindall family, 19th-century squires, with a pointed roll-moulded arch of two orders, the inner corbelled on paired short shafts. The chancel arch is formed by ribs supporting a panelled roof on slim columns with annulets, which continue to form a chancel sill band. A pointed roll-moulded vestry arch is closed by a panelled and open-traceried screen filled with stained glass. Seventeenth-century pew panelling has been reused along the north aisle wall. The church retains an original carved pulpit, lectern, and prayer desk, plus a painted altarpiece comprising a traceried triptych depicting The Last Supper. A small octagonal carved stone font stands in the baptistry. A Royal Arms dated 1676 is mounted over the baptistry arch. Good stained glass throughout the church complements fine wrought-iron door hinges and lamp holders fashioned as coronets.

All roofs are richly painted. The baptistry is rib-vaulted and painted with waterbirds standing in water amongst vegetation, with fishes and insects; the sky overhead features butterflies. The nave has a hammer-beam roof with two levels of purlins and angels carrying heraldic shields, painted with patterned bands. The chancel is tunnel-vaulted with ribs rising from colonette corbels west of the chancel arch and corbels at the east end. Above the sill band, walls and window recesses are painted with leafy fronds and flowers, while roof panels display episcopal arms. The north aisle features collared principals on corbelled arch braces with a ridge piece, all painted with floral motifs. Painted texts appear on nave wall plates and a Blessing encircles the baptistry arch.

At the time of resurvey, this prettily-decorated church was in urgent need of restoration.