Church of St Oudoceus

Church of St Oudoceus

This is a 13th-century Gothic-style aisled church comprising a nave with west and south porches, chancel, and vestry. It is built of snecked red sandstone with Bath stone dressings, roofed with Welsh slate, and finished with stone parapets and crucifix finials.

The west front is distinctive for its octagonal bellcote with a tall spire topped by a weathervane. The belfry features cusped openings with foliated capitals, and its polygonal base descends with two sexfoil panelled faces and a moulded bracket carried on a West Country-style triple shaft. This is flanked by two 2-light geometric windows with cinquefoil heads. A central gabled stone-roofed porch with cusped inner arch and hoodmoulds that step outwards at impost level to meet the ramped plinth contains oak doors with ironwork hinges. The hoodmould runs continuously around the church, passing beneath windows and over doors.

Buttresses mark the junctions of nave and aisles, with further buttresses at the corners of the aisles and chancel featuring unusual truncated shafts ending in oversized capitals. The aisles have lancet west windows with foliated stops to their hoodmoulds. The south side displays two 2-light cusped windows and a simple gabled porch (now disused) with cusped head and gable cross. The north side has three similar windows, with lancets at the east ends of both aisles. The chancel, raised on a higher plinth, has grander geometric 2-light windows and a 3-light east window with sexfoil oculus, all with foliated stops. This east window closely resembles that of the Church of St Nicholas, Trellech. A priest's door opens from the north side, and a small cusped vestry window is present. Good cast-iron rainwater goods, manufactured by Saracen Foundry of Glasgow, are carried on stone eaves corbels and the large capitals over the corner buttresses. Gables are coped and crossed.

The interior is plastered and painted. The three-bay nave with narrow aisles features an arcade carried on cylindrical piers with subtle banded polychromatic decoration and foliated capitals to the easternmost respond. A false hammerbeam roof displays carved angels. Original furnishings are retained, including pews, a carved pulpit frontal, and an octagonal font with foliage carving below the bowl. The two-bay chancel has an arched-braced roof lavishly decorated with high-quality stencil work, both figurative and naturalistic, beneath an inscription reading "Then morning stars sang together, the Son of God shouted for joy". Good mosaic figures of Moses and St Paul flank the altar, behind which stands a Devonshire marble reredos. The sanctuary is paved with encaustic tiles. The church contains fine stained glass: the east window is by Hardman, the west window in the north aisle (1908) is by Heaton Butler and Bayne, and other glass is by Newbery. Monuments to the Bosanquet family are present. A contemporary subterranean heating system is accessed from the east end of the nave.

The churchyard contains good 18th and early 19th-century headstones and table tombs on the south side, some with volute carved ends flanking oval cartouches; two groups have been identified for separate listing. An iron-railed enclosure surrounds one tomb to the Madley family. A hearse house stands at the north-east corner. The churchyard is surrounded by a good stone wall, which is separately listed.