St Laurence's Church, Bradford-on-Avon

St Laurence’s Church stands on rising ground near the centre of Bradford-on-Avon, a small town in Wiltshire. It is one of the few Anglo-Saxon churches in England that has not been rebuilt or altered in later centuries. The building may have been founded by Saint Aldhelm around the year 700, though its walls appear to date from the 10th or 11th century. The church’s history has been debated for generations. Experts such as H. M. Taylor once argued that parts of the walls belonged to Aldhelm’s time, while others suggest it was built after 1001, when King Æthelred gave the site to nuns from Shaftesbury Abbey. The nuns cared for the body of King Edward the Martyr, and the church may have served briefly as a mortuary chapel. It remains the most complete Anglo-Saxon church from this period, built on a small monastic plan. Inside, the nave measures only about 7.5 metres long and 4 metres wide, yet rises to around 8 metres high. Fragments of large reliefs show traces of once-rich decoration, including a pair of half-life-size angels that probably flanked a sculpted Crucifixion. The exterior walls feature bold pilaster-strips set forward from the surface, a technique shared with other Anglo-Saxon churches. Though a south porticus has been lost, the structure survives largely as it was in the Anglo-Saxon period.