Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a building of group value, dating to the 15th century, with substantial alterations in the 18th and 20th centuries. It is located in the village of Little Budworth. The church is constructed of red sandstone ashlar with a slate roof.

The church comprises a Perpendicular style tower and a nave and chancel, with an inscription stating "Rebuilt 1800" indicating a significant rebuilding at that time. The three-stage western tower has a projecting plinth with a moulded top and diagonal buttresses. It has a central doorway with a moulded surround and a hood mould with worn figurehead label stops. The doorway contains an 18th-century door with eight raised and fielded panels. A string course runs above the doorway to the level of the window to the first stage, which has a roll and casement moulded surround and renewed 18th-century glazing bars with three round-headed arched lights. A string course continues around the tower and across the buttresses, incorporating a series of figure and animal heads. A canopied niche sits above this string course, followed by a string course below the belfry, which has a louvred opening of three lights with 18th-century fenestration. Further above, a string course is punctuated by gargoyles to the angles and centre, topped by a battlemented parapet with chamfered machicolations. The south front is largely blank except for string courses, a staircase lancet, belfry openings, a parapet, and a clock face positioned at the level of the west face niche. This clock face is on a square plate with a circular face, dated 1785 to the corners, and bearing the inscription "Simon Faulkner, Ch Wardens" and "William Mafon". The north face is also largely blank with a 20th-century lean-to at the base. The south face of the nave has four bays with a projecting plinth, a door with a round arch and triple keystone, and three windows with round-arched surrounds, triple keystones, and a string course. The north face of the nave is similar with four windows, no door and lacking keystones and an impost band. One window on the north face lacks glazing bars. The east end features a central chancel with a round-arched window of three lights, with acanthus leaf decoration to the keystone. To either side of the chancel, the reveals are blank. A doorway in the left-hand wall of the nave has a moulded surround and a pineapple finial in relief.

Inside, a pointed tower arch is set within ashlar walling with angled buttresses. The nave has a cambered barrel vault, while the chancel has a semi-circular barrel vault. The windows have moulded Gothic surrounds. A tablet on the right-hand wall of the chancel records the gift of £1,000 in 1798 from Ralph Rinkham, a Manchester merchant, towards rebuilding the church. An 18th-century pulpit stands on four square legs and a square base with raised and fielded panels and fluted quarter columns to the corners. A 17th-century font, with gadrooned and fluted marble body of punch-bowl shape, rests on an octagonal sandstone base painted to simulate marble.