Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a 12th-century church that has undergone restoration, partial rebuilding, and additions, most notably in 1792 by S P Cockerell in a Norman style. Further work occurred in 1872, involving re-roofing and re-seating of the nave. The church comprises a three-bay nave, a two-bay chancel with a priest’s chamber above, a two-story south tower with a bell stage, and a north vestry. It is constructed of stone with Collyweston stone slate roofs and coped gables.

The chancel is buttressed with engaged round shafts, and the east end has been restored with a blind arcade of intersecting round-headed arches. The east window is round-headed, featuring stylized leaf mouldings with a billet moulded hood mould that extends as a frieze to either side. A taller, narrower window above illuminates the priest’s chamber, with two orders of blind round-headed arcading above a billet frieze, and blind rectangular panels within the gable. Similar arcading and billet friezes are present on the north and south sides of the chancel, revealing smaller, plain inner wall openings through the windows. A cornice with a stylized leaf moulding runs along the chancel. The nave, treated similarly, lacks the arcading. The north vestry has a hipped roof and small, plain round-headed windows set within recesses with moulded heads. The south tower features a pyramidal roof topped with a weather vane, and formerly held bells in a bell-cote at the west end of the chancel until 1792. The round-headed entrance has four roll-moulded orders, and a tympanum commemorates Eliza Wingfield, who funded the 1792 work.

Inside, the outstanding mid-12th-century round-headed chancel arch consists of six elaborately decorated orders on ornamental capitals. This innermost order is roll-moulded, the second has beak-heads, the third zig-zags and crenellations, the fourth features various motifs – heads, figures, animals, and foliage – the fifth has a zig-zag design, and the outermost is a stylized leaf moulding surrounded by a billet moulding. The chancel has a sexpartite rib-vault, likely dating from 1160-70, which is considered unique in its type. The ribs are zig-zag moulded and supported by stumpy columns with ornamental capitals (though the central column on the south side has been replaced with a taller, semi-octagonal shaft). A central boss depicts a head and two muzzled bears' heads. An entrance to the priest’s chamber in the northeast corner is now blocked. Tall, round-headed arches with ornamented capitals frame the windows. A square, late-12th-century font with interlaced arcaded decoration sits on a recut base. A 14th-century wooden effigy is in the chancel, alongside a 1627 wooden altar table. The 19th-century nave roof rests upon grotesque heads.