Gotham
St Lawrence

Features and Fittings

Reredos

The wood reredos above the main altar in the chancel was erected by Betsey and Jemina Sharp in loving memory of Ernest and Patty Jackson.

The Pulpit

Pulpit

There is a wooden pulpit with steps and nearby two wooden chests, one more ancient than the other.

Seating

At the restoration of the church in 1835 the seating capacity more than doubled to 628 places. Some of these seats were in the singing gallery which had been erected over the access to the church at the west end of the nave. This was later removed. Pews, which had replaced the standing rails for the poor, extended either side of the central walk-way into the side aisles of the nave with box pews near the central pulpit at the entrance to the chancel. The box pews which had seats for about 150 persons have also been removed and later alterations were made to the pews to accommodate the organ and other church functions. On either side of the chancel there are two rows of seats, the back rows higher than the front, for the use of the choir.

Tapestry 2000

181 x 156cm

This tapestry was undertaken to commemorate the millennium by a group of ladies of the village. It depicts scenes and events, past and present in the village history. For example the first one shows the ‘Curate’s House’ mentioned in the memorial window to Henry Maturin Finny. The last one is the Wesleyan Chapel that closed down in the 1960s. A faculty was obtained in the year 2000 granting permission for the tapestry to be erected in the church and provision was made to fund any maintenance by the sale of selected tapestry pictures.