Waltham St Lawrence, Parish Church Of St Lawrence c.1955

Photo ref: W377010

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A majestic yew tree marks the approach to St Lawrence's, which has a west tower of flint and stone blocks topped with early brick. The doorway is definitively Perpendicular in style, but the west window is of 13th-century vintage with finely-detailed cusped intersecting tracery. The body of the church is flint with Victorian detail, including a bleak Victorian window of 1847 on the south transept front. Internally, the church shows its Norman origins with two-bay arcades north and south and unmoulded arches separated by pieces of wall. Two of the responds have a very elementary row of flat leaves. The arcades of the short Norman church were continued east by two standard Decorated bays, but no chancel arch. The font is Perpendicular, octagonal with no separate foot or stem and panelled sides. Of the pulpit, 1619, only the back panel with caryatids in its upper part is original. The tracery heads of the screen are original, and show their Decorated rather than Perpendicular origin. Abundant stained glass by Wailes, Kempe and M Schneider of Regensburg probably dates back to 1847 - a mysterious choice. Tombs and monuments include Sir Henry Neville, 1593, and two wives and a daughter, and Captain Henry Neville, 1809 - a military still life; Katherine Thomas, 1658, has a memorable monument with an urn of a curiously organic shape, somewhat like an inverted pear on a short marble column, placed in a niche with no ornament.