St Catherine's Church, Westonbirt

St Catherine's was the parish church of Westonbirt, about 3 miles (5km) south-west of Tetbury, and it stands beside Westonbirt House, the Holford family's great house, now a school. It dates back to the twelfth century and holds the Holfords' monuments, among them the effigy of the man who began Westonbirt, the National Arboretum. It is listed Grade II.

History

St Catherine's existed by the twelfth century, and the living was a rectory by 1291. The south wall of the nave next to the tower may be twelfth century; the chancel was rebuilt or extended in the thirteenth, and the tower and the south porch were built before the fourteenth. In the fifteenth century the tower was buttressed and its arch rebuilt, and Historic England thinks it was probably raised then too. The registers begin in 1598.

The Holfords

From the 1840s the church's story is the Holfords'. R S Holford enlarged the park round the manor house, and in 1854 he pulled down the farmhouse and most of the cottages of the old village, which lay south-west of the church, and rebuilt the village further west. He gave the church a set of communion plate in 1843, bought the old rectory in 1868 and took its site into the park, and in the late 1860s made a small lake west of the church. Westonbirt House, designed by Lewis Vulliamy, rose north-east of it. R S Holford had founded the arboretum in 1829 on old downland in the north-west of the parish, and the Forestry Commission took it over in 1956.

Restorations and a school chapel

The church was restored in 1841, when the chancel was rebuilt and a north chapel extended into an aisle, in 1879, when nave and aisle were lengthened, in 1902 and in 1955. The house became Westonbirt School, and the Gloucestershire Places of Worship database records that the church was declared redundant in 1995 and handed to the school in 1996.

What to look for

Outside, the fourteenth-century south porch has stone seats and a moulded collar roof, and the two-stage tower carries gargoyles, a sundial, a clock face and a stair turret with a weathervane. Inside:

• The base of the tower, now the baptistery, with a squint through to the chancel and a Perpendicular font panelled with quatrefoils
• The four-bay north arcade on octagonal piers, and a double piscina in the chancel with a small Purbeck marble shaft
• The marble memorial to Robert Holford the elder and George Holford, who died in 1839, by Richard Westmacott the younger
• The alabaster effigy of Robert Stayner Holford, who died in 1892, lying on a tomb chest under a cusped canopy, possibly by W S Frith

Visiting

St Catherine's is in the grounds of Westonbirt School, which took it over in 1996, and we have found no regular public opening. Westonbirt House and its gardens open on set days between April and October through the Holfords of Westonbirt Trust, booked in advance; check the Trust's dates if you want to see the house the Holfords built.

Getting there

Westonbirt is on the A433 between Tetbury and Bath, about 3 miles south-west of Tetbury. The 620 bus between Stroud, Tetbury and Bath stops at Westonbirt Arboretum on weekdays and Saturdays. Westonbirt House (GL8 8QG) has free parking on its open days. Our walk in Silk Wood explores the arboretum the Holfords planted.

Nearby

Westonbirt, the National Arboretum is less than a mile away, and the Hare and Hounds hotel is about a kilometre off. Highgrove Gardens are a few minutes' drive north. R S Holford bought Beverston Castle in 1842, and in Tetbury St Mary's is the town's Georgian church.