Boston St Botolph
Boston St Botolph
St Botolph's, known as Boston Stump, is a Grade I parish church on Church Close, Boston, Lincolnshire, in the Diocese of Lincoln. Its western tower with tall octagonal lantern is a landmark over the fenland.
- Location
- Boston, Lincolnshire
- Country
- England
- County
- Lincolnshire
- City / town
- Boston
- Address
- Bank Street, Boston, Lincolnshire, PE21 6NW
- Postcode
- PE21 6NW
- Built
- 1309-90 (chancel, nave and aisles); tower c.1450-1520
- Architect
- Restorations by Gilbert Scott (1845), George Place of Nottingham (1851-53) and Sir Charles Nicholson (1929)
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Botolph
- Diocese
- Lincoln
- Parish
- Boston St Botolph
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Decorated and Perpendicular
- Materials
- Ashlar with lead roofs
- Grid reference
- TF 326 441
- Opening hours
- The church is open to visitors from 8.30am until 4pm Monday to Saturday and on Sundays from 1pm to 4pm. The tower is open most days from 10am until 3.30pm.
- Access
- Level access to the main areas
Overview
Historic England records that work began in 1309 on the chancel, nave and aisles, completed in 1390; the tower was started about 1450 and finished in 1520. The church is ashlar with lead roofs. The plan is a western tower with octagonal lantern (the Stump), nave with clerestory, aisles, chancel, south porch and chapel, and north vestry. The three-stage tower has stepped set-back buttresses, panel tracery, crocketed pinnacles and a castellated parapet; the lantern has flying buttresses and crocketed pinnacles. The west front has a pair of traceried doors under a cusped ogee and a very large eight-light west window. The north aisle is of seven bays with tall four-light windows of flowing tracery; the clerestory is of fourteen bays. The two-storey south porch has a parvise and a sundial dated 1757. Beyond the porch is the three-bay Cotton Chapel.
The interior has seven-bay nave arcades with quatrefoil piers, a painted timber nave ceiling of 1927 by Sir Charles Nicholson, and a star lierne vault in the tower by G. G. Pace using the springers of an unexecuted medieval vault. Fittings include choir stalls of about 1390 with misericords, a pulpit of 1612, wrought-iron communion rails of 1754, an octagonal nineteenth-century font in fourteenth-century style by Edward Welby Pugin, and a reredos of 1890 by W. S. Weatherley. Restorations were by Gilbert Scott in 1845, George Place of Nottingham in 1851-53 and Sir Charles Nicholson in 1929. Stained glass includes work by M. and A. O'Connor (1853), Kempe (1889) and Burlison and Grylls (1944).