History of St Leonard's Church

The parish church of St. Leonard consists of a chancel with a north vestry, nave, north aisle, south porch, and west tower.

The earliest material in the building is the late-13thcentury north arcade, indicating an aisle of that period added to an earlier nave that was probably shorter than now. The aisle may have been widened late in the 14th century. There seems to have been a medieval tower, which was entirely remodelled about 1720, when the upper half was added or rebuilt. There is no detail by which the lower half can be dated. In the vestry is a tablet recording that the south wall of the nave was rebuilt and the nave and aisle reroofed, the interior refitted, and the vestry added in 1863. The chancel is not mentioned, and it was evidently subsequent to this that it was entirely rebuilt, probably in 1875, the date of the glass in the east window. The north arcade also seems to have been reconstructed with the old material, except for the western bay, which is all modern. Except for repairs the aisle seems to have been undisturbed.

The chancel (25 ft. by 18 ft.) has a modern east window of three lights and one north and two south of two lights, all with tracery in the late-13th-century style. The walls of coursed rough ashlar have some ancient stones re-used. The roof has arched trusses forming two bays and is tiled. The responds of the modern pointed chancel-arch are triple-shafted, with moulded capitals and bases.

The nave (about 60 ft. by 19½ ft.) is long and narrow. It has a north arcade of five 11½-ft. bays of late-13thcentury date, excepting the west bay, with its pillar and respond, which is modern. The pillars are octagonal and have moulded capitals and bases, the latter mostly mutilated. The arches are semicircular, of two chamfered orders; the voussoirs are small and from their unevenness have evidently been reset.

In the rebuilt south wall are five modern windows, three of two lights and tracery, the third a lancet, and the fourth a single light with tracery, perhaps forming a clue to the dates of the original windows. The south doorway, between the third and fourth, is of the 15th century except for modern base-stones. The yellow stone jambs and two-centred head are moulded on a splay of 45°, and the innermost hollow is decorated with square foliated paterae, except for two near the apex which are blank shields; they are irregularly spaced from 4 to 9 in. apart. The head, which is of two stones only with a middle mitre-joint, has a hood-mould with return-stops. While the masonry of the upper part of the wall is modern, with many re-used stones, the lower part up to about 7 ft. is ancient rough ashlar in yellowgrey stone. The south-west angle buttress is also ancient, and has a 15th-century double plinth. The others and the south porch are modern. The modern roof is of hammer-beam type in five bays.

The north aisle (10½ ft. wide) has four north windows; the first three are of the late 14th century and are each of two trefoiled lights and tracery in a square head; the easternmost and parts of the others had lost their cusps and these have been restored outside the glass, with other renovations. The westernmost window is modern, of two trefoiled lights and different tracery. The north doorway, between the second and third, has chamfered jambs and a four-centred head of c. 1500. The west window is of two plain four-centred lights under a square head, of the same period. The north wall is of ancient yellow-grey rubble, partly squared, but the east and most of the west wall are of coursed yellow rough ashlar. Only the middle part of the north wall, east of the doorway, has a plinth. The buttresses, except that west of the third window, are also ancient; the eastern is diagonal. The lean-to roof is modern.

The west tower (12 ft. square inside) is built of coursed yellow ashlar in two stages, divided by a plain string-course. The ashlar of the lower stage is probably medieval, and it has a chamfered plinth of which the top course is of the 18th century, but the lower part of ancient squared rubble. There are clasping buttresses at the angles, 2½ ft. wide and 7 in. projection, of a deeper yellow ashlar, the courses of which do not align with those of the walling; they have 18th-century moulded caps at the level of the string-course, and moulded bases level with the main chamfered plinth.

There was a round-headed archway to the nave, now walled up by a thin wall on the nave side with a modern doorway in it. In the north-east angle is a stair-vice entered by a round-headed doorway in the splayed angle and lighted by north loops. In the south wall is a round-headed doorway. In the west wall is an 18th-century round-headed window, also of stone differing from that of the walling and not coursing with it; it has been fitted with a modern mullion and transom and tracery bars in an attempt to Gothicize it.

The upper stage is of 18th-century ashlar, more even and regular than the lower, and has a plain pilastered parapet. The bell-chamber windows are like the west window and similarly treated with modern mullions, &c. The clock-chamber below has two small west windows and north and south clock faces.

The font and other furniture are modern. In the south porch is a slab with a brass inscription to Richard West, buried 1691, and his wife Elizabeth, buried 1 January 1688–9. There are also a few late-18th and 19th-century monuments, and in the churchyard a number of early-18th-century carved head-stones and high tombs.

There are six bells, the tenor recast by Taylor & Sons, 1845, and the others by Henry Bagley, 1721. (fn. 17)

The registers date from 1689.