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St Swithun

St Swithun

Hempsted

Gloucestershire

Parish church, C14, partly rebuilt 1467-77 for Henry Dene, Prior of Llanthony Priory.

Architectural Features

Rebuilt in 1467-77, it is mostly ashlar-faced with a central Perpendicular tower.

PLAN: originally a three-bay nave which was remodelled and reroofed in 1467-77 and extended to the west in 1885

Rebuilt in 1467-77, it is mostly ashlar-faced with a central Perpendicular tower.

© Mike Searle

C14 south porch and doorway

C14 central tower

C14 two-bay chancel with upper stage rebuilt or added 1467-77

The south chancel wall is of two bays, each divided with offset buttresses, within each bay is a restored two-light C14 window with a quatrefoil light in curvilinear tracery head.

To the west of the central buttress is a priest's doorway with Tudor-arched head.

Between the second stage and the upper, belfry stage is a moulded string course, while above the upper stage is a crenellated parapet enriched with panels of blind, trefoil-headed arcading on a moulded string course from which two gargoyles project on each side.

The roof to the nave has shallow-pitched trusses with embattled tie-beams and infills of arcading with tracery above the beams supported on curved braces with pierced foils in the spandrels, the braces are set on carved stone corbels.

Between the trusses are ribbed ceilings with carved bosses.

The floor is laid with late-C19 encaustic tiles and above the east bay of the chancel is a C19 open timber roof.

FITTINGS: include a late-C12/early-C13 font in Transitional style with a round bowl on a pedestal cut with an arcade of six shafts with capitals on a circular chamfered plinth.

The pews, stall and pulpit are late C19.

STAINED GLASS: includes the aisle window on the north side of the tower, by Hardman, 1878, which contains a medieval fragment of a small mitred head said to be Prior Henry Dene

MONUMENTS: a brass to the children of Arthur Porter, d.1548

the tomb of Judge Richard Atkins of Tuffley, d.1610, of marble with painted recumbent effigy in judge's robes

Judge Richard Atkyns of Tuffley (†1610).

marble Baroque monument to Sir Thomas Lysons, d.1713

Judge Richard Atkyns of Tuffley (†1610).

© Mike Searle

also the funeral hatchment of Samuel Lysons, Rector of Rodmartin, d.1804, the father of Samuel Lysons the antiquarian.