Details
LYDNEY CHURCH ROAD
SO 60 SW
(east side)
7/60 Church of St Mary
7.8.54
GV I
Anglican parish church. Mainly C13, a chapel of c1500, restorations of C19
including late C19 rebuild of spire. Thin-bedded sandstone rubble with large
flush quoin stones, welsh slate roof to coped gables with crosses. West tower
and spire, nave, north and south aisles, deep north porch, deep vestry to south
aisle, chancel also with vestry, chapel at east end of north aisle. Tower
of C13 in 4 stages with crenellation, and rebuilt octagonal spire with roll
mould arrises, heavy buttresses in 2 stages, bold string courses at each stage,
bold stair turret north side in 3 stages; C13 doorway, C19 door with strap
hinges and rail head, under a cusped niche with a C20 figure of Christ, cusped
lancets in stages 2 and 3 and twin cusped belfry openings; south side also
has a central buttress with one offset to the first stage only, and cusped lancets.
South aisle has 3-light lancets, the central one cusped and under continuous
moulded string with leaf stops, south side 2 tall lancets and one 4-light C15
window, east end a 3-light C13 plate tracery window; deep projecting vestry
of late C19. Chancel south side two 2-light plate tracery lancets to stopped
drips, east end triple lancet, not stepped, north side plain lancet. Chapel
east end has 3-light window under square stopped drip, and to north, up 4 steps
a 4-centred door and 4-light windows similar to east end. North aisle with
2 cusped lancets and a 4-light window, north porch has plain roll-mould door
surround under coped gable with cross.
Interior: tower arch is two broad chamfers internally and 3 orders to nave
with a string as capital band, and a glazed screen of 1927 to Charles Eldridge
Besant, and an organ above. 5-bay nave to slender circular piers with C19
caps and bases set on square plinth blocks. Double chamfer arches, and to
clerestory 3-light cusped openings with flat rere-arches and a fine waggon
roof with gilded bosses, and 2 tie-beams; wide south aisle with waggon roof
with 18 gilded bosses and 4 tie-beams; wide north aisle, north door to segmental
pointed moulded head and to its right a pointed arch to holy water stoup, the
4-light window a 1914-1918 memorial, the east end has arch in two orders with
shafts on high plinths and double-ware mould, 5 steps give access to Bledisloe
Chapel with 4-light north and 3-light east Tudor windows with interesting C20
glass to Arthur Henry Bathurst (1872-1936). The east window represents the
Franz Josef Glacier, Waiho, New Zealand. A stone floor, and arch braced roof,
to south a moulded segmental-headed opening with plain glass and a 4-centred
opening with responds, caps and double chamfer. The chapel contains 12 Bathurst
memorials, dating from 1754 to 1979, and hatchment with the Bathurst motto
'TIEN TA FOY'.
Chancel has large flat opening to organ chamber to north, and an arch-braced
5-bay roof with 18 bosses.
Monuments: in the tower a series of upright ledger slabs of C17 and C18, some
badly worn, various memorials elsewhere of C18 and C19, including tablet by
William Paty, and C14 stone effigy of a lady carrying a heart. Perpendicular
octagonal font with Tudor rose in quatrefoils to square panels.
(D Verey, Gloucestershire: The Vale and the Forest of Dean, 1970).
Listing NGR: SO6332102527
