Church of St Mary Lutterworth, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

LUTTERWORTH CHURCH STREET SP5484 1323-0/9/66 (West side) 11/01/55 Church of St Mary GV I

Church. C13, altered in C14 and C15. Top stage of tower early C18. Restored by Sir George Gilbert Scott, 1866-69. West tower, clerestoried nave with north and south aisles and south porch, chancel. Random rubble stone generally with dressed stone and ashlar dressings, quoins and eaves and gable parapets. Ashlar top stage to tower. Plain leaded roofs. Tower of three stages with massive clasping buttresses rising to second stage, that to west very large indeed, enclosing stair turret. Weathering course dividing first and second stages, with two bands below and one above. Hollow-chamfered band, with cross-pattern panelling below top stage. Shallow panelled pilaster-strip quoins to top stage, carrying hollow-chamfered cornice, panelled parapet and huge crocketted pinnacles with arched niches in pedestals. Large two-centred arched belfry openings in top stage, with Y-tracery, smaller 2-light windows of C14 on second stage and lancet windows towards ground on lower stage. Aisle west windows with intersecting tracery to right and curvilinear tracery to left. Nave with crenellated parapet and five-bay clerestorey, C14 three-light windows with central light rising into apex of each arch. Irregular fenestration with four windows to north and five to south, C19 restorations of C14 curvilinear decorated windows. East window of south aisle with reticulated tracery. Gabled south porch with crenellated parapet carrying crocketted finials over angle buttresses flanking double hollow-chamfered and wave-moulded arch on three orders of columns; crocketted finial over gable. Two C14 windows in chancel flanking C13 lancet with hoodmould. Evidence of two more lancets in east wall. C15 east window, restored by Scott, with round blank window in gable above. Interior: multi-chamfered tower arch. Four-bay arcades with double-chamfered arches on tall slender octagonal piers, C14. Chancel arch double-chamfered in a continuous moulding; panelled soffit. C14 tie-beam aisle roofs. Nave roof, also C14, with brattished tiebeams, arcaded in the spandrels of the braces, which stand on corbelled colonnettes, and to either side of the king-posts. Moulded ridge-piece and purlins; various moulded bosses. C19 chancel roof. Fittings: C13 piscina. C15 wooden pulpit, tall with blank traceried panels. Font: octagonal, stone, C19. Communion table (now in north aisle); C16, wood, on lion supports. Screen; one-light divisions with ogee-headed lights, probably later C19, (now on north side of chancel). Stained glass; north aisle east window, 1869 by Burlison and Grylls; east window, 1884 by Clayton and Bell;, chancel south-west window, 1889 by Warrington. Sculpture; Wycliffe Memorial, (east end of south aisle), white marble relief by Richard Westmacott, Junior. Late-C14 painting over north aisle doorway of three figures, possibly the Three Kings, possibly the 'three living and three dead' allegory. Monuments; early C15 alabaster tomb chest in north aisle with two recumbent effigies. Man in gown over armour. Against the tomb chest are angels with shields under flat canopies. Depressed arch to tomb recess with demi-figure of an angel holding a soul in a napkin at the apex. Two brasses, to John Field, d 1403, and his wife, d 1418, in the north aisle, and brasses to a civilian and his wife, c 1470, in the nave. Large Doom over the chancel arch, with figures rising out of tombs and large seated Christ in majesty surrounded by angels over. John Wycliffe was Rector of Lutterworth from 1374 to 1384. (The Buildings of England: Pevsner N, Williamson E, Brandwood G: Leicestershire and Rutland: London: 1984-: 298-300).

Listing NGR: SP5424584453