Church Of Saint Peter

The Church of St Peter is a church with origins in the 13th century, incorporating later elements from the 14th century, and significantly restored between 1900 and 1903 by Hodgson Fowler for Sir Tatton Sykes. It is constructed of ashlar with lead roofs. The church comprises a 13th-century west tower, a 14th-century chancel, a north aisle added later, and includes a south porch.

The west tower has three stages and features a double chamfered plinth, clasping and pilaster buttresses, and a roll-moulded string to the belfry stage. A lancet window is present on the ground floor, while twin pointed belfry openings have mid-wall shafts, chamfered imposts, and hood-moulds. A former corbel table sits below a later parapet with moulded coping. The nave has a chamfered plinth and buttresses with offsets. It contains a single pointed window to the west, a three-light square-headed window to the east, and a series of two-light square-headed windows elsewhere, all with early 20th-century curvilinear tracery. A 19th-century pointed south door displays Perpendicular style mouldings and a stopped hood-mould. The south aisle has raised coped gables. The south porch has a rebuilt arch from around 1300, with attached shafts having round bases and capitals. It features a raised coped gable with a cross finial.

The chancel has a double chamfered plinth, buttresses, and angle buttresses with offsets and gablets. It contains two-light pointed windows with curvilinear tracery including mouchettes and a stopped hood-mould. A double-chamfered trefoil-headed priest’s door sits under a stopped ogee hood-mould with a crocketed finial. The east window is pointed with three lights and 19th-century tracery and a stopped hood-mould.

Inside, the tower arch is double-chamfered and sits on shaped corbels, showing traces of four earlier roof scars. Remaining elements of the early 13th-century arcade include two round piers with waterholding bases, and a west respond with a similar attached shaft. The remaining arcades feature late 19th-century circular, octagonal, and quatrefoil piers supporting double-chamfered pointed arches under continuous hood-moulds with acanthus or human head stops. The chancel arch, dating from the 15th century, has raised bases, responds with fillet and shallow roll mouldings, and moulded imposts supporting a pointed arch. Sedilia are trefoil-headed with attached colonnettes, foliage capitals, crocketed ogee gablets, and poppyhead finials, beneath a hollow-chamfered dripstone. A trefoil-headed piscina is found in an ogee-headed opening with quarter-round moulding. A 12th-century tub font, originally from the demolished church of Cottam, has cable moulding and arcading enclosing carved panels depicting Adam and Eve, the martyrdoms of St Andrew and St Lawrence, The Tree, St Margaret and the dragon, and a beast. A 12th-century lintel displays a Paschal lamb and a vine trail.