Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a parish church dating from the 13th to 15th centuries, constructed of ashlar and coursed rubble stone with lead parapets and Collyweston slate roofs. It is located on Church Street in Empingham. The church comprises a west tower, nave, aisles, transepts, chancel, a north vestry, and a south porch.

The very fine west tower is of four stages and topped with a spire. It features a plinth, stepped angle buttresses, a shafted west doorway with ballflower decoration and an ogee arch framed by similar shafted blank arches, three niches above, and a stage of blank arcading—later incorporating a clock face to the north. The tower also has four bell openings with curvilinear tracery, a carved frieze, a north gargoyle, battlements, and tall hexagonal, shafted, and crocketted pinnacles. The spire has two tiers of lucarnes and a weathercock. The exterior of the church displays stepped and angle buttresses, and windows with hood moulds and label stops.

Inside, a many-moulded west arch has shafted keeled responds. A later 13th-century four-bay north arcade features double-chamfered arches resting on circular piers with capitals. Above the eastern bay is an original circular clerestory window. The early 13th-century four-bay south arcade has double-chamfered arches on circular piers and octagonal capitals. A Perpendicular clerestory includes three-light windows, three to the north and four to the south. The roof is of the 19th century, incorporating original Perpendicular carved figures, wall pieces, and curved braces from stone corbels. The north aisle contains a north door and three three-light Perpendicular windows. The north transept is similar, featuring a fine north window and some original stained glass in the heads of the east windows, alongside two niches—one cusped, the other ogee-headed. The 13th-century chancel has a triple lancet, a blocked lancet, a 19th-century vestry to the north, an east window with intersected tracery, two double lancets, a triple lancet, a south door, and a fine sedilia and piscina with an ogee-leaded aumbry to the south. A 19th-century roof covers the chancel. The 13th-century south transept includes three double lancets, a triple lancet, and a small cusped niche. The south aisle features Perpendicular windows, one with stained glass from 1907, a 13th-century south doorway, and a 14th-century south porch. Contemporary wall paintings are found in the north and south transepts, and over the south door. A 17th-century oak pulpit and a 19th-century brass lectern are also present, along with 18th-century hatchments. In the north transept is a 13th-century tomb recess with a coffin slab, and two other coffin slabs are loose. A further coffin slab is mounted in the wall under the west tower.