St Lawrence, Towcester

St Lawrence's is a Grade I parish church on Moat Lane (Chantry Lane), Towcester, Northamptonshire, in the Diocese of Peterborough. Historic England records a thirteenth-, fourteenth- and fifteenth-century church, restored in 1835–36 and in 1883 by J. L. Pearson.

Overview

The listing describes coursed limestone and ironstone rubble and coursed squared limestone under lead roofs. The plan comprises a five-bay chancel, vestry, north and south chancel chapels, nave, north and south aisles, south porch and west tower. The chancel has a five-light Perpendicular east window, Decorated windows with curvilinear tracery, and a stone-vaulted crypt beneath the raised sanctuary. The tall three-stage west tower has a many-moulded west doorway with fleurons, a three-light Perpendicular window above, diagonal buttresses and a battlemented parapet.

The interior has four-bay nave arcades with octagonal piers and three reused thirteenth-century capitals. The mid-nineteenth-century chancel arch incorporates two Romanesque shafts. Fittings include an octagonal font with a panelled bowl on crocketed nodding ogee arches, fragments of fifteenth-century glass in the south chapel (including arms of Archdeacon Sponne), and the table tomb of William Sponne (d.1448) with restored effigy and cadaver. The nave roof dates from 1958.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1371638
• St Lawrence, Towcester (parish site)