Church Of St Peter And St Paul

CHURCH OF ST PETER AND ST PAUL, GREAT BOWDEN

A parish church of 13th to 15th-century origin, substantially expanded and rebuilt during the medieval period, with 18th-century porches and sympathetic restoration carried out by architects Talbot Brown and Fisher in 1886-87.

The church is built of coursed local ironstone with lighter freestone dressings and lead roofs. It comprises an aisled nave with a lower, aisled chancel, and north and south porches.

The 14th-century two-stage tower, remodelled in the 15th century, is the earliest external element. It features diagonal buttresses to the lower stage, an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles, and a short parapet spire with lucarnes. The parapet incorporates cross-shaped loops. The west window is a two-light Perpendicular design beneath a large round clock in a stone surround. The south face displays an ogee-headed small window below the upper-stage string course, with two-light openings fitted with louvres in the upper stage.

The remainder of the church is predominantly late Perpendicular in style. The short four-bay nave has three-light clerestorey windows (only three on the south side). The south aisle contains a four-light window and, to the left of the porch, a circa-1300 two-light geometrical window. The south porch, built in the 18th century, has a keyed round entrance arch leading to a doorway with continuous moulding. The north aisle has two three-light windows and a two-light window of varying sizes and dates. Its west wall features a panel door under a pointed Y-tracery overlight, though the stone surround was originally a window frame. The north porch, dated 1790, has a pointed doorway with keystone and a fielded-panel door beneath a Y-tracery overlight.

The chancel has two blocked clerestorey windows on the south side and is blank on the north. Three-bay chancel aisles match the nave aisle dimensions, though a change in the plinth course indicates their different construction periods. The south aisle has two three-light windows and a four-light window, with a boarded door in the east wall. The chancel east window is a 19th-century three-light Decorated design below which earlier random-rubble masonry is visible. The north aisle displays three-light and four-light windows.

Internally, the nave arcades feature piers of unusual section with demi-shafts to the arches and projections on their north and south sides containing deep hollows—a type also found at Market Harborough. The 14th-century tower arch is double-chamfered, dying into the imposts. The chancel arch, by contrast, dates to the 19th century; its right-hand side retains the head of the former rood-loft doorway. The chancel contains two-bay arcades: the north side has a pier with diamond-set Perpendicular section, while the south side is 13th-century with quatrefoil-section piers, double-chamfered arches, and responds with keeled shafts. The 13th-century piscina and adjacent blocked priest's doorway sit beneath single-chamfered arches.

Most roofs are 19th-century with castellated tie beams to the nave and chancel. The north chancel aisle retains a three-bay roof with 16th-century cambered tie beams, two of which have bosses. Walls are plastered. The chancel has a tile floor; the nave has a stone-paved floor with floorboards beneath the pews.

The principal interior features include two 15th-century wall paintings, restored in 1961. A large 15th-century Doom painting on the north wall of the north chapel represents one of the finest surviving examples in Leicestershire. The south wall of the south chapel bears the head of a saint, less well-preserved. Post-Reformation features of note include an organ case of circa 1700, set on panelling from a late 18th-century gallery, a repainted Royal Arms of 1778, benefaction and commandment boards, and fragments of post-Reformation texts on the north wall of the north aisle, now partitioned to create a kitchen.

The octagonal font was installed in 1887, though its cover, a 17th-century piece now in the south chapel, is considerably earlier. Benches have square ends with fluted panels, adapted from late 18th-century pews. The polygonal pulpit features similar panels and fluting. A wrought-iron chancel screen was added in 1895, and a panelled Gothic reredos in 1932.

A notable monumental brass records William Wolstanton (died 1403); the reverse side bears a 14th-century head, probably of Flemish origin—a palimpsest now displayed in a wooden frame in the chancel. The chancel north wall contains a standing neo-classical wall monument to Henry Shuttleworth (died 1800) by J. Wing, with several additional 18th and 19th-century wall tablets elsewhere in the church. The east window, by Heaton, Butler and Bayne (1891), depicts the Passion and Resurrection; one window in the south aisle is by Hardman (1907).

The church was originally 13th-century in origin, as evidenced by the south chancel arcade, piscina, and blocked priest's doorway. The nave had acquired at least a south aisle by circa 1300, indicated by one surviving window of that date. The tower was added in the 14th century, by which point the present church plan was likely established. The nave and aisles were rebuilt and heightened in the 15th century. The south porch was constructed in the 18th century, and the north porch in 1790, contemporary with the addition of a gallery and new box pews.

A major restoration took place in 1886-87 at a cost of £2,229, undertaken by architects W. Talbot Brown and Fisher of Wellingborough, with contractors W. and J.H. Martin of Market Harborough. Windows were restored, a new chancel arch was constructed, new tracery was designed for the east window, and roofs were rebuilt. The gallery was removed and box pews were cut down to form the present benches.

The churchyard is bounded by stone and cob walls and contains tombs dated to the 17th to 19th centuries.