St Saviour's Church is a historic 19th-century

Anglican Anglicanism is a Western Christian tradition that has developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the context of the Protestant Reformation in Europe. It is one of th ...

church in the town of

Tetbury Tetbury is a town and civil parish inside the Cotswold district in England. It lies on the site of an ancient hill fort, on which an Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded, probably by Ine of Wessex, in 681. The population of the parish was 5,250 in ...

Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...

, England under the care of The Churches Conservation Trust. It was designed by the architect

Samuel Daukes Samuel Whitfield Daukes (1811–1880) was an English architect, based in Gloucester and London. Family background Daukes was born in London in 1811, the son of Samuel Whitfield Daukes, a businessman with coal mining and brewery interests, who b ...

. Augustus Welby Northmore Pugin and John Hardman undertook the design and execution of the chancel roof. St Saviour's is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

History

The church was built in 1848 as a

chapel of ease A chapel of ease (or chapel-of-ease) is a church architecture, church building other than the parish church, built within the bounds of a parish for the attendance of those who cannot reach the parish church conveniently. Often a chapel of ea ...

in the parish of St Mary the Virgin's Church, Tetbury. At that time the richer people paid a fee for the use of a pew in St Mary's (a pew rent). St Saviour's was built for the poorer people who could not afford this charge, and it came to be described as "a little church for the poor".

Architecture

Exterior

St Saviour's is a

Gothic Revival Gothic Revival (also referred to as Victorian Gothic, neo-Gothic, or Gothick) is an architectural movement that began in the late 1740s in England. The movement gained momentum and expanded in the first half of the 19th century, as increasingly ...

church in the Decorated Gothic style, built in local stone with

Cotswold stone The Cotswolds (, ) is a region in central-southwest England, along a range of rolling hills that rise from the meadows of the upper Thames to an escarpment above the Severn Valley and Evesham Vale. The area is defined by the bedrock of Jur ...

roofs. The plan has a

nave The nave () is the central part of a church, stretching from the (normally western) main entrance or rear wall, to the transepts, or in a church without transepts, to the chancel. When a church contains side aisles, as in a basilica-type ...

with side

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

s and a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

from which projects a north

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

. The main entrance is through a south porch into the nave. The church has steeply

gable A gable is the generally triangular portion of a wall between the edges of intersecting roof pitches. The shape of the gable and how it is detailed depends on the structural system used, which reflects climate, material availability, and aesth ...

d ends, which project beyond the roofline, terminating in small crosses and, at the western end, a

bellcote A bellcote, bell-cote or bell-cot is a small framework and shelter for one or more bells. Bellcotes are most common in church architecture but are also seen on institutions such as schools. The bellcote may be carried on brackets projecting from ...

. There is no

clerestory In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...

, the roof of the nave extending into catslides of a less steep pitch over the aisles. The corners of the building have splayed stepped

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es, with two more buttresses occurring on the west front, at the ends of the aisles. The main windows of the church have tracery in the Flowing Decorated Gothic style of the early 14th century, that at the east of the chancel being the largest with three lights. There are two light windows in the south wall of the chancel, the ends of the aisles and a larger two light window into the nave. High in the nave gables are two small

rose window Rose window is often used as a generic term applied to a circular window, but is especially used for those found in Gothic cathedrals and churches. The windows are divided into segments by stone mullions and tracery. The term ''rose window'' w ...

s. The sides of the aisles are lit by small lancets.

Interior

Inside the church the nave is separated from the aisles by arcades of four

bays A bay is a recessed, coastal body of water that directly connects to a larger main body of water, such as an ocean, a lake, or another bay. A large bay is usually called a gulf, sea, sound, or bight. A cove is a small, circular bay with a narr ...

supported on alternate round and octagonal

piers Piers may refer to: * Pier, a raised structure over a body of water * Pier (architecture), an architectural support * Piers (name), a given name and surname (including lists of people with the name) * Piers baronets, two titles, in the baronetages ...

. All the fittings date from the time of the building of the church. These include the pews with poppyhead ends, the stone

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

, the stone

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

, and the wooden chancel screen. The original gas fittings are still in the church, although they are no longer functioning. These include the pipes, the wall brackets, and on the top of the chancel screen, a burner bar consisting of a row of gas jets. The church chandelier in the centre of the nave i a corona lucis gasolier by Hardman. The organ formerly in the church has been removed.

External features

The lychgate is designated as a Grade II listed building. It is thought to be contemporary with the church, and is built in stone with a Cotswold slate roof. The churchyard contains the

war graves War is an intense armed conflict between State (polity), states, governments, Society, societies, or paramilitary groups such as Mercenary, mercenaries, Insurgency, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violenc ...

of six Commonwealth service personnel of

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...

, and ten of

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Saviours Church, Tetbury Tetbury, St Saviour's Church Tetbury, St Saviour's Church Gothic Revival church buildings in England Tetbury, St Saviour's Church Churches completed in 1848 Tetbury, St Saviour's Church Tetbury