St Lawrence's Church, Lechlade

St Lawrence's is the parish church of Lechlade-on-Thames, on the east side of the Market Place, its spire a landmark across the river meadows. It was rebuilt in the 1470s in Taynton stone, partly with wool merchants' money, and is listed Grade I. The churchyard inspired Shelley in 1815. The church is closed for restoration, and the parish expects to reopen it in time for Christmas 2026.

History

The story of St Lawrence's is one of a fifteenth-century rebuilding on a much older site. The parish says excavations on the edge of the town in 1985 found Christian burials of the mid-seventh century, so a Saxon church probably stood nearby, and a church of St Lawrence is recorded in 1255, one of the few in England with the privilege of sanctuary.

The rebuilding of the 1470s

In 1470 the vicar, Conrad Nye (Ney in the parish's history), recorded that he and the parishioners had rebuilt the nave and aisles and that he meant to rebuild the chancel next; the parish dates the work from about 1472 to 1476. In 1472 Cecily, Duchess of York, mother of Edward IV, founded a chantry of St Mary here, endowed with the possessions of the hospital of St John by St John's Bridge, dissolved that year, and John Twyniho founded a chantry of St Blaise; the chapels either side of the chancel probably housed them. The town's wool trade is remembered in its brasses: one in the south aisle shows John Townsend, a wool merchant who died in 1458, with his wife. The clerestory and north porch are early sixteenth century, and the nave roof and the tower with its spire were probably added then too.

The stone came from Taynton, near Burford, the same freestone that, the parish says, was shipped from Lechlade down the Thames to London for St Paul's Cathedral. The parish describes it as wholly Perpendicular in style, and the architectural historian David Verey counted it among the six finest parish churches in Gloucestershire.

Later changes

Richard Pace fitted new pews and galleries in 1829 to 1830. Waller & Son refitted the church in 1882, and the painted bosses of the chancel roof were restored in 1938.

Shelley

In 1815 the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley came up the Thames to Lechlade, and his "A Summer Evening Churchyard, Lechlade, Gloucestershire", dated September 1815, came of that visit; Mary Shelley later wrote that the stanzas were written in the churchyard. The church path across the meadows is known as Shelley's Walk.

Project Inspire

The church closed after its last Sunday services on 18 January 2026 for Project Inspire, a restoration backed by the National Lottery Heritage Fund and other grants. The work includes a new stone floor with level access throughout, underfloor heating fed by two air source heat pumps in the churchyard, a kitchen, a new toilet and glass doors in the west porch. By the parish's late spring 2026 update the heat pumps were in and the underfloor heating pipes laid, with the screed due in June. The parish expects to reopen the church in time for Christmas 2026.

What to see

From the Market Place, look at the west tower, three stages with diagonal buttresses and corner pinnacles, and its slender eight-sided spire with a gilt weathervane. The west face has the clock and a three-light window, and over the arched west door an angel holds a shield.

The north porch is the finest piece of carving outside: an embattled parapet with pinnacles, carved figures along its base and, inside, a flat stone ceiling ribbed in a star pattern.

When the church reopens, look inside for the early sixteenth-century nave roof on wooden shafts, the gilded and painted bosses in the eastern bay of the chancel roof, the carved original vestry door, the fifteenth-century octagonal font under a canopied niche, the medieval brasses at the east end, and a marble monument by Nicholas Read to Mrs Anne Simmons, who died in 1769. About two dozen monuments in the churchyard are listed in their own right.

Visiting

The building is closed during the works, with services held in the Memorial Hall and the Baptist church; when we checked, the parish expected to reopen it in time for Christmas 2026. The churchyard and Shelley's Walk stay open, though parts of the south side may be fenced off at times. Check the parish website before you plan to go in.

Getting there

The church is on the Market Place in Lechlade, where Stagecoach West's 77 stops on its way between Cirencester, Fairford and Highworth, about four times a day each way from Monday to Saturday, with no Sunday service. There is no car park at the church; walkers report two-hour parking in the town centre and a pay-and-display car park by the river.

On foot, Lechlade and St John's Lock is a flat 3-mile loop that comes home along Shelley's Walk to the church and finishes at The New Inn on the Market Place.

Nearby

Halfpenny Bridge and the River Thames are a few minutes south. Downstream, Father Thames reclines at St John's Lock beside The Trout Inn, and across the fields are two more remarkable churches: St John the Baptist, Inglesham, saved by William Morris, and St Mary's, Buscot, with its Burne-Jones glass. Our story on the wool churches of the Cotswolds sets St Lawrence's among its peers. Back on the Market Square, Lynwood & Co is a café open from 8am to 4pm (3pm on Sundays).