Details
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
