Description

SO 72 SW TAYNTON -

7/224 Church of St. Lawrence

2.10.54

GV II*

Parish church; 1650 for T. Pury, altered 1825, 1864 by T. Fulljames, 1893 (foundation stone to chancel). Random rubble walls, larger stone quoins, ashlar windows; chancel rock-faced squared stone, irregular-height courses, ashlar dressings: tiled roofs. Four-bay nave, 2-bay chancel, north porch, organ chamber; church oriented north/south. Gable to road: single-storey gabled porch, double doors, 2 fielded panels each, flat stone lintel, headstone against gable each side, weathered on left, Esther Morris, died 1765 on right. Sunken square with quatrefoil above door, parapet gable, cross-gablet apex. Slit window each return. 1694 headstone against gable on left. Three-light mullion window above porch, trefoil heads to each light, under segmental arch, hoodmould, and relieving arch. Parapet gable, ashlar bellcote at apex with iron weathervane, 1660 in tail. Left, east side: blocked door on right, to left three 3-light mullioned windows, trefoil heads each light, flat head, with hoodmould and stone voussoirs above. Cross gablet apex to parapet gable on left. Chancel slightly set back, two 2-light windows with Perpendicular tracery and hoodmoulds, buttress between, and diagonally-set on corner. Parapet gable with cross-gablet apex and stone cross. Interior: some memorial slabs in nave floor, including Robert Pury, died 1662, son of Thomas Pury who built the church. Dado panelling to nave: double doors, 2 panel each to porch, horizontal boarding on back. Heavy frame: either side a wooden Corinthian pilaster, lettering in Hebrew painted on frieze, above square panel with scrolls each side and ornamental top. Three tie beams across nave, scissor braced collar rafter roof, with ghost of collar purlin. Chancel: linen fold panels in late C19 frame form dado panelling behind communion table. Pulpit C17, semi-octagonal, ornamental timber panels, gadrooned cornice, wrought-iron candelholder, said to have come from Holy Trinity Church, Gloucester; on stone base. Font: circular bowl with alternate cherubs' heads and acanthus leaves, fluted stem, on square base, up 2 stone steps. Some good C18 or early C19 monuments, especially Holder monument by pulpit. Benefactions boards on north wall and in porch, last a stone tablet. Medieval church on different site, burnt 1643 in a Civil War skirmish. New church, a single-cell building forming the present nave, was built by order of Parliament in 1650 for Presbyterian worship. In 1825 a schoolroom was added to the south, a gallery and porch. In 1864 the plaster ceiling was removed, and the windows replaced: the wooden steeple was replaced by a stone bellcote in 1875, and the chancel and organ chamber built in 1893-94, replacing the schoolroom: the gallery was removed at the same time. A vestry in the angle between chancel and organ was apparently intended, but not built. Nave roof is older than the church, and may be from Holy Trinity, Gloucester, like the pulpit. Surround to north door appears to be the former reredos. Thomas Pury who built church lived at The Grove and is buried in the churchyard (q.v.). A rare church built in Commonwealth period. (Bigland's Collection for the County of Gloucester, III, 1889; Morris's Gloucestershire Directory, 1876; Kelly's Gloucestershire Directory, 1897; D.Verey, Gloucestershire, The Vale and the Forest of Dean, 1970.)

Listing NGR: SO7372622147

External Links

• Wikidata Q17537358

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Recommended Books

• 
  For the Record
• 
  Gloucestershire 2: The Vale and The Forest of Dean: Vale and Forest of Dean Pt. 2 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bristol (Pevsner Architectural Guides: City Guides)
• 
  Sussex: East with Brighton and Hove (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Gwent/Monmouthshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of Wales)
• 
  Pioneers of Modern Design: From William Morris to Walter Gropius (Penguin Art & Architecture)