St Lawrence Church, Lechlade

St Lawrence Church, dedicated to St. Lawrence of Rome, is the Church of England parish church of Lechlade in Gloucestershire, England.

The spire of St Lawrence, from the Thames

History

A church is known inferentially to have existed in Lechlade since at least 1210 when a fair was granted on St. Lawrence’s day.[1] The present building replaced an earlier structure in the 15th century (probably around 1470-1476[2]), though the nave roof and clerestory, the north porch, and the tower and spire may have been added in the early 16th century. A west gallery for singers was installed in 1740 and there were further internal additions in the 1880s.[1] The church building is Grade I listed[3] and is described with admiration in Simon Jenkins’s England’s Thousand Best Churches[4]

Literature

In September 1815 Percy Bysshe Shelley visited Lechlade with his future wife Mary, her step-brother Charles Clairmont, and the novelist Thomas Love Peacock, and was moved to compose a poem, A Summer-Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire, which was published the following year. The path through the churchyard is now named “Shelley’s Walk”, in an ironic tribute to the famous atheist.

Community

The Vicar is Dr Andrew Cinnamond and the Curate is Mr Jonathan Clark.[5] The church has strong links with the nearby St Lawrence Church of England Primary School.

  • St Lawrence Church web-site
  • St Lawrence Church of England Primary School web-site

References

  1. 1 2 Lechlade, in A History of the County of Gloucester: Volume 7, ed. N. M. Herbert (Oxford, 1981), pp. 106-121. British History Online [accessed 15 March 2018].
  2. ↑ David Verey, Cotswold Churches (B.T.Batsford Ltd, 1976), at page 107
  3. ↑ British Listed Buildings, Church of St Lawrence
  4. ↑ Allen Lane, 1999
  5. ↑ St Lawrence Church web-site, accessed on 19 March 2018

Coordinates: 51°41′38″N 1°41′26″W / 51.69387°N 1.69043°W / 51.69387; -1.69043

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