Church Heritage Record 605048

Complex, because of the intrusion of other buildings; aisled nave of five bays, the western two bays of the aisles with buildings above; chancel with tower to the north, the first floor of which is the organ chamber. The ground floor of the former Priest's House is now used as a vestry.

The two western bays of the nave in their present form date from the Norman period. Next follows the eastern part of the nave of the fifteenth century. The tower was rebuilt by William Paul in 1711-2, the cupola added by George Townsend in 1716. The chancel was rebuilt and shortened by 6 feet in 1850, but evidently embodies earlier work.

The tower of the church is the most noticeable feature. It stands at the north-east corner of the building, fronting Corn Street, and with three bays of the north aisle showing to the west before the rest of the building is concealed; nothing of the chancel is visible from the north.

The tower is square, of four stages which gradually increase in height until the uppermost suddenly is twice the height of that below. This, together with the appearance of one three-light Gothic window in the third stage, suggests that the rebuilding in 1711-16 involved the casing of the medieval tower and raising the upper part to virtually double its old height. The effect is remarkably successful, since the three lower stages are on a scale perfectly in accord with the flanking buildings, and the tall uppermost stage forms, in more distant views, a substantial plinth for the cupola which it supports. The three lower stages begin at ground level with a wide, shallowly recessed round-headed arch filled with rusticated ashlar surrounding a round-hoaded window, the whole arch flanked by pilasters. The next stage has a segmental-headed window flanked by moulded pilasters, the window of three lights divided vertically by strips of stonework. Below the sill are a pair of consoles and at each side are shallow round-headed recesses. The third stage has a three-light Gothic window with cusped main lights and panel tracery, doubtless all renewed but possibly showing the existence of earlier stonework within the walls.

The upper part of the tower is in two strongly contrasting sections. Resting on the stage just described is a tall stage about twice the height of that below, almost entirely plain with sunk rectangular panels in each face and a roundel in a moulded surround placed in the centre of each face to allow egress of sound from the bell chamber. This is capped by a balustrade rather than a parapet and there are flaming stone urns at each. Within the balustrade is a temple on an octagonal base. The arched sides are open, and paired Corinthian columns between each arch support urns round the base of the stone cupola. The finial of the whole design is gilded cross and ball on stone baluster-like base. The tower and cupola were restored in 1807.

The north aisle wall is of three bays, each bay marked by slender buttresses upon which stand pinnacles, set diagonally, also very slender, which rise above the parapet. The latter is pierced with quatrefoils at the whole wall stands on a plinth. The windows are of four lights divided centrally by mullions shaped as small buttresses, and the wall space not taken up by windows is panelled with rich effect.

On the west front of the church nothing is visible save for the west gable of the nave, both aisles being concealed. The gabled nave wall is now all nineteenth century in appearance, and is chiefly taken up with a wide six-light window, the lights arranged in two group of three with panel tracery above. Below in the main entrance, completely renewed Perpendicular doorway with one moulded order and one with flourons against a hollow moulding.

The two west bays of the aisles are windowless, all the light coming from the large west window above the entrance. Sturdy Norman piers with scalloped capitals enforce the sense of enclosure, while behind the arches which they carry are rooms on the upper floors of the adjacent commercial building and Priest's House, At the west end of the south aisle is small window in the wall and the south wall has a late Perpendicular doorway into the ground floor of the old Vicarage; otherwise there are no windows in this area. The piers still have their Norman character, but are in fact much renewed; the arches which they carry are of two ordrers both completely plain, and also somewhat renewed.

The next section of the church is the three-bay eastern area of the nave, entirely rebuilt in the fifteenth century and a marked contrast to the Norman work. Here the aisles are deeper, reaching back to the north end south outer walls of the building, both of which are pierced with large windows which admit a certain amount of light, although the narrowness of the alley outside the south aisle doos not permit as much light to enter as might be expected. There is, moreover, no clerestory. The nave roof is continuous from west to east, an open timber roof with closely-set rafters showing no distinction of bays. The tall slender piers of the arcade have attached shafts in four directions with their own foliated capitals.

The north aisle is more spacious than the south, and has been arranged as a chapel with now paving on the floor and an eighteenth-century communiontable at the east end. The east wall, which is the lower part of the tower, has an arch of which the lower part is filled with ashlar masonry and the upper is open to the organ chamber, screened by a row of metal organ pipes. The roof apparently dates from the late eighteenth century. The south aisle also has a roof supported on stone corbels carved as angels, and while its west wall is, like the west wall of the north aisle, covered with an attractive assembly of eighteenth-century wall tablets, the large architectural monument in front of the east window, designed by Gibbs and with a figure by Rysbrack, is one of the best known features of the church and, of its genre, in Bristol. It commemorates Edward Colston (1636-1721), the Bristol benefactor and slave trader, of whom another statue was famously toppled in 2020. 

After the expansive width of the eastern part of the nave, the long thin proportions of the chancel soon even more exaggerated. The east wall is an uncommon design, with a big east window of five lights with panel tracery flanked by shallow recesses with gothic canopies. Below the window is a recess several feet deep opening to the church through three arches of elaborate Victorian Perpendicular character with multi-cusped arches, ogee crocketted gablets with angels in the spandrels and pinnacles between, altogether a flamboyant display forming, as it were, a reredos screen for the altar.