Church of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

Church of England church with medieval origins, largely rebuilt in 1885 by R J Johnson, commissioned by Sir Lowthian Bell. The church contains a stained glass window by Morris and Company from 1885, two windows by Douglas Strachan, and a lychgate by Philip Webb.

Materials and Construction

The building is constructed principally of sandstone ashlar, except for most of the north wall which retains stone rubble in situ medieval stonework, and most of the east wall which is built of coursed, squared sandstone. The roof is covered with plain red tiles and finished with cast iron rainwater goods.

Plan and Layout

The church has a three-bay plan with an undivided interior except for a step up into the sanctuary and a small gallery at the far west end. A south porch and bell-cote occupy the west end.

Exterior

Surviving medieval fabric appears largely restricted to the north wall, which includes a small lancet window towards the east and, towards the west, a low two-centred arched doorway with imposts, both now blocked. A small two-light square-headed window with trefoil plate tracery has been inserted towards the centre of this wall.

The east end, which may also largely predate the 1885 rebuilding, features a simple three-light bar-tracery window beneath a hood-mould. Changes in the stonework reveal that the gable wall has been raised. It is supported by angled, stepped buttresses and the gable rises above the roofline, with stone coping and a simple stone cross at the ridge.

The south wall appears as a single build. It contains two windows: a two-light window to the east and a three-light window to the centre, both square-headed with trefoil plate tracery. The south porch projects from this wall, with a raised, coped gable surmounted by a stone cross. The porch is open with a two-centred archway having double hollow-chamfers beneath a hood mould. The doorway into the church is similar. To the sides of the porch are simple rectangular windows with distinctive rectilinear leading.

The west end features a four-light window similar to those of the south wall, also with distinctive rectilinear leading. The stonework is of single build, includes a high plinth, and shows some snecking to the stone coursing. The raised coped gable is topped by an ashlar bell-cote surmounted by a cross.

Interior

The exposed timber roof structure comprises an arch-braced truss roof supported by unadorned stone corbels, with fine carving to the wall plates. The sanctuary is separated from the rest of the church by a step and flanked by a pair of baroque Corinthian-style aedicules in hardwood, believed to have originally formed part of a reredos in Newcastle Cathedral. The sanctuary contains a hardwood altar rail and choir stalls. A small raised gallery with pews occupies the far west end of the church.

Stained Glass Windows by Douglas Strachan

The north window is a memorial to Gertrude Bell, Sir Lowthian Bell's granddaughter. This highly distinctive two-light window demonstrates clever use of leadwork integrating the simple stone tracery with pictorial depictions of stained glass, surrounded by inscriptions forming a unified design. The inscriptions include Arabic text believed to be part of a poem by the mystical poet Hafiz, translated by Bell and published in 1897. The window depicts figures of East and West, illustrating aspects of Bell's remarkable life. The west light shows a monk above a view of Magdalen College Oxford (where Bell gained a First in Modern History at Lady Margaret Hall after just two years) and below a depiction of the Matterhorn (she climbed a series of alpine mountains between 1899 and 1904, including at least ten new routes or first ascents). The east light depicts a female figure in exotic Arabic dress above a view of Khadimain near Baghdad (she was instrumental in the creation of the state of Iraq in the early 1920s through her role as an advisor to King Faisal and her positions within British military intelligence), and below a depiction of a camel train (before the First World War she travelled widely through Arabia and was made a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society in 1913, soon after membership was opened to women). Other decorative details draw further distinctions between East and West.

The east window is a three-light bar-tracery window of quality design by Strachan, integrating the leadwork into the design and making careful use of colour to harmonise with the stonework. For a Strachan window it appears unusually conventional, for instance including halos which Strachan typically avoided. The window has additional technical interest as it is made up of different thicknesses of glass to provide different qualities to the light passing through it.

Lychgate

The lychgate by Philip Webb is traditionally jointed in carved oak and supports a hipped roof with tiny gablettes, finished with handmade plain tiles.