Details
LUTTERWORTH
CHURCH STREET
SP5484
1323-0/9/66 (West side)
11/01/55 Church of St Mary
GV I
Church. C13, altered in C14 and C15. Top stage of tower early
C18. Restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott, 1866-69. West
tower, clerestoried nave with north and south aisles and south
porch, chancel. Random rubble stone generally with dressed
stone and ashlar dressings, quoins and eaves and gable
parapets. Ashlar top stage to tower. Plain leaded roofs. Tower
of three stages with massive clasping buttresses rising to
second stage, that to west very large indeed, enclosing stair
turret. Weathering course dividing first and second stages,
with two bands below and one above. Hollow-chamfered band,
with cross-pattern panelling below top stage. Shallow panelled
pilaster-strip quoins to top stage, carrying hollow-chamfered
cornice, panelled parapet and huge crocketted pinnacles with
arched niches in pedestals. Large two-centred arched belfry
openings in top stage, with Y-tracery, smaller 2-light windows
of C14 on second stage and lancet windows towards ground on
lower stage. Aisle west windows with intersecting tracery to
right and curvilinear tracery to left. Nave with crenellated
parapet and five-bay clerestorey, C14 three-light windows with
central light rising into apex of each arch. Irregular
fenestration with four windows to north and five to south, C19
restorations of C14 curvilinear decorated windows. East window
of south aisle with reticulated tracery. Gabled south porch
with crenellated parapet carrying crocketted finials over
angle buttresses flanking double hollow-chamfered and
wave-moulded arch on three orders of columns; crocketted
finial over gable. Two C14 windows in chancel flanking C13
lancet with hoodmould. Evidence of two more lancets in east
wall. C15 east window, restored by Scott, with round blank
window in gable above. Interior: multi-chamfered tower arch.
Four-bay arcades with double-chamfered arches on tall slender
octagonal piers, C14. Chancel arch double-chamfered in a
continuous moulding; panelled soffit. C14 tie-beam aisle
roofs. Nave roof, also C14, with brattished tiebeams, arcaded
in the spandrels of the braces, which stand on corbelled
colonnettes, and to either side of the king-posts. Moulded
ridge-piece and purlins; various moulded bosses. C19 chancel
roof. Fittings: C13 piscina. C15 wooden pulpit, tall with
blank traceried panels. Font: octagonal, stone, C19. Communion
table (now in north aisle); C16, wood, on lion supports.
Screen; one-light divisions with ogee-headed lights, probably
later C19, (now on north side of chancel). Stained glass;
north aisle east window, 1869 by Burlison and Grylls; east
window, 1884 by Clayton and Bell;, chancel south-west window,
1889 by Warrington. Sculpture; Wycliffe Memorial, (east end of
south aisle), white marble relief by Richard Westmacott,
Junior. Late-C14 painting over north aisle doorway of three
figures, possibly the Three Kings, possibly the 'three living
and three dead' allegory. Monuments; early C15 alabaster tomb
chest in north aisle with two recumbent effigies. Man in gown
over armour. Against the tomb chest are angels with shields
under flat canopies. Depressed arch to tomb recess with
demi-figure of an angel holding a soul in a napkin at the
apex. Two brasses, to John Field, d 1403, and his wife, d
1418, in the north aisle, and brasses to a civilian and his
wife, c 1470, in the nave. Large Doom over the chancel arch,
with figures rising out of tombs and large seated Christ in
majesty surrounded by angels over. John Wycliffe was Rector of
Lutterworth from 1374 to 1384.
(The Buildings of England: Pevsner N, Williamson E, Brandwood
G: Leicestershire and Rutland: London: 1984-: 298-300).
Listing NGR: SP5424584453
