Church Of St Peter

Church of St. Peter

A parish church of early 14th-century date, substantially enlarged and altered in subsequent centuries. The building comprises a west tower (15th century), a four-bay nave with a north aisle and south porch (early 14th century), and a three-bay chancel rebuilt in 1858 by Robert Jennings of Atherstone. Construction uses coursed and squared freestone with ashlar to the north aisle and tower, while the chancel is of random rubble. Plain tile roofs are fitted with stone coped verges.

The three-stage west tower is the most architecturally prominent feature. It has a moulded plinth, an offset belfry stage, and a crenellated parapet with moulded coping stones to both merlons and crenels. External panelling of trefoiled arches with sunken spandrels decorates the walls, and two gargoyles project from each side immediately below the parapet. Diagonal corner buttresses diminish with height to emphasise the building's verticality, each buttress topped by panelled and crocketed pinnacles. The recessed spire is of octagonal section with crocketed angles and three tiers of lucarnes with crocketed hood moulds. The four-centred west door displays two orders of roll-mouldings and a returned hood mould. Above it rises a tall three-light window with panel tracery beneath a two-centred arch, with a trefoil-headed loop flanked by two groups of three blank shields immediately above.

The belfry openings each contain two trefoil-headed lights with Perpendicular tracery beneath a two-centred arch and returned hood mould; the western opening is flanked by a pair of niches. Three three-light windows in the south wall of the nave feature, from west to east, cusped intersecting tracery, reticulated tracery, and flowing tracery, each with hood moulds terminating in head-stops and two-centred arches.

The 14th-century gabled south porch has a large wave-moulded entrance arch carried on corbels carved as heads. Its east wall retains an original quatrefoil-shaped loop. The inner south entrance displays two orders of convex quarter-round mouldings with a hood mould having head stops, and preserves a medieval door with strap hinges. A 15th and 16th-century clerestorey runs along the nave, each window containing two lancet lights and sunken spandrels beneath a square head, topped by a plain parapet with moulded coping.

The north aisle retains a pointed three-light east window with cusped flowing tracery and a north window with reticulated tracery and scroll-moulded hood terminating in head-stops. A blocked pointed doorway in the north wall has an outer order of filleted shafts and moulded capitals, continued around the arch as a roll and fillet, with an inner concave quarter-round moulded order. The 1858 chancel features a four-light east window with intersecting tracery incorporating geometric shapes, and Decorated windows to north and south with hood moulds and block stops. A 19th-century polygonal turret on the south side, within the angle where nave meets chancel, serves as a small vestry.

The interior contains a three-bay north arcade of double-chamfered pointed arches springing from octagonal columns with moulded capitals. The chancel arch has a continuous outer chamfer and an inner chamfer springing from engaged half-columns. The tower arch is segmental pointed with a continuous roll-moulding. The nave roof, dating to the 15th or 16th century, is of low pitch with cambered tie beams supported by brackets springing from wooden corbels. Each tie beam is fitted on its soffit with a carved boss (comparable to those at the Church of St. Margaret, Stoke Golding and Church of St. Mary, Barwell). The purlins and ridge piece are moulded throughout. A similar roof covers the north aisle. The chancel is spanned by a 19th-century arch-braced collar roof.

The font is a 15th-century octagonal stone piece with trefoil-headed arcading to the sides of the basin matching that used on the tower parapet. A 19th and 20th-century octagonal wooden pulpit stands in the south-east corner of the nave, entered through a door communicating with the vestry. The east bay of the north aisle contains a piscina and a recess (probably for an image), both with ogee heads suggesting this part of the church once functioned as a chapel. A 14th-century sedilia features cusping above and below its ogee arches.

Monuments include a pedimented tablet in the nave to Richard and Theodisia Farmer (died 1764 and 1768) with scrolls to the sides, and an oval plaque on a tablet surmounted by a fluted urn to Isaac Whyley and other family members (after 1821). The chancel contains tablets to the Reverend James Roberts (died 1842) and Edward James Chamberlayne (died 1887), the latter in red veined marble with the sacred monogram at the base set in gold mosaic.

Medieval stained glass remnants survive in the south nave windows, including a Madonna and child, a piper within a roundel, and a heraldic shield.