Some background

 

CANON PYON S.Lawrence now stands isolated from the main population of the parish, but this must have been the case for many centuries. Unlike the situation at Birley, the A4110 has not served as a boundary but as a way through. Domesday describes a large manor of 55 households. The 1387 Visitation Returns record that the incumbent had perjured himself before the king’s justices (we are not told why or how), and that a female parishioner was great with the reputed child of the rector of neighbouring Sarnesfield. By the start of the more respectable Victoria’s reign, most of the population was to be found in Westhope and the hamlets nearby. Canon Pyon proper was only a few cottages and a couple of large houses near the bend that leads to Kings Pyon. Indeed, as any driver knows, it feels more natural to ignore the bend and drive straight on into the churchyard gate and up to Court Farm. At 3,706 acres the scattered parish is big and includes the hamlets of Westhope (where the Bulmer cider-makers endowed a corrugated-iron chapel of ease), Lawton’s Hope, Bush Bank, Derndale, Parks and Nupton.

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Architectural notes

 

CANON PYON is built of sandstone rubble and ashlar with tiled roofs, is of 13th 14th and 15th century date, and was restored in 1865, 1870, 1897 and around 1922. The buttressed four-stage south-west tower and combined porch is 14th century, though the parapets and weathercock are from the 20th. The nave is of four bays and the chancel and north chapel of two. There is a priest’s doorway in the south wall. The oak main door is probably late 19th or early 20th century.

 

The interior is the most complex of the churches of the group. The most immediate feature is the badly out of plumb 13th century south arcade. The north wall has a blocked doorway. Though the roofs are mainly 19th  century, the one in the north aisle is 15th. The piscina in the chancel is also 15th century. The font’s circular base and cylindrical stem appear to have been ornamented 12th or 13th century and given an octagonal bowl in 15th. The door from the south aisle to the tower is mediaeval with later repairs.

 

The general quality of the oak woodwork is high. This appears to have started early : the elaborate and fully restored oak chancel screen is probably 15th century, and the screen that divides the chancel from the north chapel is of similar design and date. The choir stalls in the chancel reputedly came from Wormsley Priory and are 16th century with carved misericords and moulded arms. The two benches to the west are probably 19th century but with carved 15th century poppyheads. Similarly, the carved oak ends of the benches in the south aisle appear to be 16th or 17th century. Though the mensa is 20th century, the rest of the altar appears to be early 17th century. The communion rails are early 18th century, the partly octagonal pulpit is 19th century, and the lectern was presented in 1920.

 

There is plenty of stained glass : the piece of most antiquarian interest is in the south-west window and was given by John Nash in 1906, “to the Glory of God and to remind the Vicar and Church-wardens that his and his wife’s grave are kept in order” (this was before the birth of the Diocesan Advisory Committee). A great deal of care and money has been given to this place.

 

The church is listed Grade 1 and much of the information has been taken from the listing description.