History
St. Aidan's church is an ancient foundation, dedicated to a C6 Irish monk who was a pupil of St. David. An ancient pillar-stone, with faint carvings, is displayed on the exterior of the E wall of the present building. The church is now re-roofed and partially rebuilt in the C19 on old foundations, with particularly interesting mediaeval survivals at the S side.
Apart from the pillar stone, the pier and responds of the chancel/vestry arcade are the oldest identifiable surviving parts, of the C12. The subsequent architectural history of the church is complex; at the S a tower, probably C13, was added to a hypothetical original nave. A radical late C13/early C14 transformation is reasonably to be assigned to the time of Bishop Bek (when the village was being elevated to the status of a borough) or a little later. In this development the early nave was superceded by the present large nave and a N chapel replaced by the new chancel. The present nave apparently overlaps the site of the older nave. A new and much larger tower was added, also on the presumed old nave site. Unusually, the old tower was retained, its N wall serving as the S wall of the new one. The old tower staircase was retained and adapted.
Prior to restoration, the church consisted of a C13/C14 nave and chancel with the Roch chapel (which was the original chancel) to the S of the chancel, and a double tower S of the nave.
Restoration commenced in the time of the Rev. Thomas Bridgestock in 1834. £200 was spent on the repair of walls, the replacement of the roof, and the construction, as ordered by the Bishop, of a gallery. When the later restoration of 1861 was undertaken the inferior timber used and the damage caused to the stonework by the gallery in 1834 were matters of complaint. The new restoration was undertaken by the architect J J Sturge, of Thornbury, Bristol, in the time of the Rev. Daniel Jones. At an estimated cost of £930 it was decided that the nave and chancel were to be rebuilt, but this rebuild left much early masonry intact. Further expense was encountered during the work, for a new chancel arch, W entrance, nave paving, stained glass, new churchyard walls and gates. In addition the private chapel S of the chancel (the old chancel) was restored at the Roch family's expense: in it free pews for the poorer parishioners were installed. The church was re-opened in June 1862. The Roch chapel later became the vestry.