Wootton St Lawrence is a small village on the western outskirts of Basingstoke in north Hampshire, consisting of a cluster of houses and the church on the N-S road running through the village. The church stands on the W side of this road.

It is a large, flint church with ashlar dressings, consisting of an aisled nave with a W tower and a S porch, and a chancel with a N vestry. Most of it is the work of J. Colson in 1864, but he retained the N arcade and the S nave doorway, both 12thc. features. There is also a grotesque head reset in the exterior W wall of the N aisle, which may be Romanesque.

Wootton was held by the monks of St Swithun's Winchester from the Bishop, certainly from the time of the Domesday Survey until the Dissolutuon and probably from much earlier. It was assessed at 20 hides for geld. A second holding of 5 hides was held by Hugh de Port from the Bishop of Bayeux, however the advowson of the church was held by the Bishop. In 1863-64 the entire church was rebuilt, except for the 14thc. tower, but the N arcade was retained, as was the S nave doorway, which was reset in a new S aisle. Of later medieval work, 14thc windows with their tracery were reused in the chancel. The church was reconsecrated on 11 August 1864 by the Bishop of Winchester, and a description of the work that was done is given in the Hampshire Chronicle (see Bibliography).

The doorway, with its chevron, cushion capitals and chip-carving, can be dated c.1120-30. The arcade is later; the trumpet scallops pointing to a date after c.1170. Pevsner and Bullen suggest that the short bay in the arcade was added at the W end of the nave shortly after the original arcade was completed to connect with a tower, or to relate to a pre-existing bell-turret. Bullen relates the droplet label stops to similar features at Longparish (S chancel doorway). If the pillar piscina came from Wootton, it probably relates to the chancel and is evidence for work taking place there is the 2nd half of the 12thc.