Church Heritage Record 616039

Aisleless nave with south porch, hexagonal tower between nave and chancel ; chancel.

Roger Berkeley, who died in 1131, gave the advowson of the church to the Augustinian community at Leonard Stanley (which in 1146 itself became a cell to the Abbey of St. Peter at Gloucester). Berkeley had founded the church at Ozleworth and it is likely that the hexagonal central tower of the present church dates from his time, i.e. about 1110-20. The upper stage seems rather later, perhaps about 1150. In about 1220 the west arch of the hexagon was widened to its present form and a small nave was built west of it. In about 1350 the apse or short chancel which presumably had stood to the east of the hexagon was taken down and the chancel extended to its present dimensions. The porch appears to be fourteenth-century. Finally, by a Faculty of 18 July 1873 the church was restored by The Revd. W.H. Lowder, when a gallery of 1732 and its external stair was taken down and the nave was extended westwards by eleven feet ; the builder was W. Restall of Bisley, and the cost was £350. William Henry Lowder was a brother of The Revd. C.F. Lowder of St. Peter's, London Docks, and he was born in 1831. He studied under Butterfield and was ordained in 1861, after which he was a curate of Bisley (Gloucestershire) where he rebuilt the church; of Leek (Staffordshire); of Wolverhampton, St. Andrew; and Vicar of St. John, Alvanley (Cheshire) and Southminster (Essex). He restored the churches of Miserden (Gloucestershire), Broadbottom (Cheshire) and Southminster. He published various papers in the Transactions of the Oxford Architectural Society of which he was for some years Secretary.

The hexagonal plan of the tower at Ozloworth is the most notable feature of the church and is thought to be the only one in this position to remain in the country. Although another hexagonal tower survives at Swindon in the some county, it is at the west end of the present church. It is usually considered that the Ozleworth tower, which is open from floor to roof, was the nave of the original church and that it had in the first place a small narthex to the west and an apsidal (or possibly rectangular) sanctuary to the east. The nave of c.1220 and the chancel of c.1350 made the church roughly symmetrical until this was disturbed by Lowder's lengthening of the former in 1873.

The tower is divided externally into three stages by bold stringcourses. It is an irregular hexagon in plan with a broad east face, less wide west face and the other four faces (north-west, north-east, south-west and south-east) all of lesser dimensions. It is capped by a pyramidal roof of fairly low pitch surmounted by a weathercock. The lowest stage is blind on the north and has the remains of an arch in the south-east face, though this has long been blocked. The second stage is also blind on the north but on the south, where the stringcourse no longer exists, it has a small two-light window with a roundel between the heads of the lights which was probably inserted by Lowder. His historical evidence for this is not known. In the north-east and south-east walls of this stage there are remains of blocked loops.

On all six sides of the top stage are round-arched Norman openings framing paired arches, themselves round-headed and carried on a central shaft with capitals having flat scrolls of debased Ionic form at the angles (only those to the north-east and south-west being unrestored). The upper stringcourse encircles the tower complete except where interrupted by the points of the nave and chancel roofs. The walling stones are generally level and the angles are formed by carefully cut quoins. There are no buttresses - indeed there are none anywhere in the building except for the angles of Lowder's extension to the nave.

The nave has north and south doorway close to the east end, an unusual position. That on the north, which has a plain round arch with a chamfer, was blocked in the eighteenth century and that on the south still forms the main entrance, sheltered by a simple stone porch with stone benches at each side and a Victorian tiled floor. This doorway is Transitional in style, with two orders of which the inner is simply a chamfered jamb but the outer is unique. It has nook-shafts with crisp foliage on the circular capitals and a broad moulding against which a looped roll-moulding forms six big cusps. These frame pairs of crossed leaf sprays, also highly stylised in a manner typical of French architecture of the period. In the outer spandrels of the cusps are smaller stylised leaves. The whole design is enclosed by a semi-circular label. The remaining openings of the nave, two lancets in the north wall, one in the south and two lancets with a quatrefoil above in the west wall, all belong to Lowder's work.

The chancel has a thirteenth-century east window of two pointed cusped lights with a pointed quatrefoil between, but all the other windows (two lancets in each wall like those of the nave but with vaguely cusped heads) are all insertions by Lowder. The north doorway with a trefoil-headed arch also seems to be all his work.

Of the interior of the nave there is little to say since its aspect is almost entirely the result of Lowder's restoration, with plastered walls, tiled alley and wooden boards under the chairs with which this area is seated. Although the Faculty of July 1873 allowed for the renewal of all roofs, there are several old timbers in the nave roof and its semi-circular vault (the plaster was doubtless removed by Lowder) is probably a reproduction of its original form. The font stands by the door and a curtain at the west end screens the only available vestry space.

The arch from the nave into the tower is a thirteenth-century insertion of great rarity and interest. Isolated examples are found elsewhere in the country of similar experiments with three-dimensional space at St. Mary's Gateway, Gloucester; at Burpham, Sussex for example (south transept arch, c.1160). The decoration consists of chevrons formed of short lengths of roll-moulding standing away from the wall, suspended in space. The suggestion has even been made that this is a symbolic representation of the crown of thorns, derived from the patterns formed by the interlacing thorns of several sprigs of genista sphacelata decne, a plant found on Mount Carmel. But it seems more likely that a native carver was simply experimenting with forms. The arch is carried on short colonettes with stiff-leaf capitals and round moulded abaci which are themselves carried on foliated corbels.

Thus the tower space is reached. The irregular hexagonal shape is emphasised by red, black and buff tiles laid by Lowder with straight lines leading to a miniature plan of the tower under its apex. The tower is open from floor to a wooden rib-vault inserted in 1873. In the south-east wall there appears to have been a fifteenth-century recess, perhaps for an altar, with a corbel for a statue nearby. In the north-east face is the opening from the rood stair within the thickness of the wall of the tower, entered from the chancel beyond. At a height of about eighteen feet is a stringcourse all round, like those outside in form, and it is possible (but unlikely) that this carried a belfry floor. The chancel arch is earlier than the arch to the nave, probably indeed contemporary with the erection of the tower. It is low, round-headed with simple imposts at the springing and no decoration except small heads on the imposts, the arch is not chamfered.

The western parts of the chancel walls may be contemporary with the tower since they are of the same thickness of masonry. The whole chamber was lengthened in c.1350 and tapers towards the east. All the windows except the east window are Lowder's and so are the furnishings, panelled roof and floor levels. The small space is rather overcrowded both by the steps (one at the chancel arch, two at the rails and one at the footpace) and the stalls which at that period were of course obligatory. The lower part of the east window, moreover, is crowded by an unsympathetic reredos. In the north-west corner, set high in the wall, is the narrow doorway to the rood stair with a four-centred arch.