Church of St Lawrence

Church of St Lawrence

A low, narrow church with a large tower on the north side, built primarily of limestone rubble masonry with some render remains visible on the north face. The church consists of a nave, chancel, and small south chapel, with a porch at the west end featuring a round-arched doorway. The tower and porch are constructed of uncoursed hammer-dressed masonry.

The south wall of the nave is buttressed by three large buttresses, behind the middle one of which is a blocked pointed-headed doorway. The chancel and south chapel walls have a slight batter at their base. The porch and south chapel have low-pitched roofs with thick slates, the porch slates rendered over, while elsewhere the roof pitch is steep with tile ridges and sandstone gable copings on kneelers. A small circular slate-roofed projection projects from the north side of the nave.

Windows in the south wall of the nave are square-headed with stone surrounds and mullions. The south wall of the chapel has a two-light trefoil-headed window. The tower, which features a battlemented parapet on a corbel table, has a stairs turret at the northeast corner lit by loops. The belfry contains double square-headed lights facing north, east, and west. The tower's lower storeys formerly had large square-headed mullioned windows, though most are now blocked or reduced in area.

Internally, the chancel is small and vaulted, with a single lancet window in the east wall and a small square window in the south wall. A single sedile and piscina are present. Stone benches stand against the chancel-arch wall, and encaustic tiles are visible. Large pavement-tombstones flank the altar. The south chapel contains plain cross-ribs added to conceal a conventional barrel-form vault. The chancel arch is low and narrow.

The nave has a 19th-century timber roof with two large tie beams and oak pews. A pulpit occupies the southeast corner. A panel of old wall-painting on the north wall depicts what is said to be a stencilled representation of a martyr with implements of torture, possibly depicting St Lawrence of Rome, to whom the church is dedicated, though little detail is now discernible. A high-level slit window in the west wall suggests there was once a gallery in the nave or a loft to the porch.

The north transept or tower base is roughly vaulted in mass rubble concrete with shuttering marks. The east wall contains an arched recess possibly for an altar and a niche. A large passage-squint connects the transept to the chancel. The west wall contains a tomb or Easter Sepulchre. A circular staircase in the northeast corner provides access to the tower. The second and third floors of the tower have been removed, though sockets and projecting corbels remain for these missing floors. The third storey was used as a dovecote with four rows of seven nesting holes. The fourth storey has a modern belfry floor.

The porch contains benches on each side, with a statue niche above the door and a small high-level light into the nave. A water stoup is present in the southeast corner.

Memorials include one to the Williams family of Norchard beside the altar, dated 1692, and a brass tablet to the Reverend Gilbert Smith, Rector from 1837 to 1877, on the north wall of the chancel. Windows contain plain glass.

In the churchyard are a stone wall with gate and stile, a well (separately listed) at the south corner, and the ruin of a cottage at the west side that was formerly a school and was probably originally a priest's house.