Bradford on Avon

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Bradford on Avon, Anglo-Saxon chapel of St Laurence. This small but ambitious Wiltshire building has a lofty nave from which low arches lead into a square-ended chancel, a north chapel, and a now-destroyed southern chamber. Its masonry is of very high-quality ashlar which is elaborately decorated externally with pilaster strips, string courses, and blind arcading. These features, together with the manuscript analogues for the carved angels above the chancel arch, suggest a Late Saxon construction date; the recorded grant of the minster to Shaftesbury nuns in 1001 would provide an appropriate context.

Richard N. Bailey

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Bradford on Avon

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