Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

Parish church built over several centuries from the late 12th century onwards, with major work in the early 13th, 14th, and late 15th centuries. The building was restored by R. C. Carpenter between 1850 and 1854. It is constructed in ashlar with lead roofs.

The church comprises a clerestoried nave with aisles, a crossing tower, clerestoried transepts with west aisles, a chancel, south and north porches, and a vestry.

The exterior displays a rich collection of period windows. The west front features a 14th-century Decorated window of 6 lights with curvilinear tracery, flanked by single 3-light 14th-century aisle windows with ogee heads and triangular heads. A small 19th-century store was built between the buttresses. The north aisle is battlemented and has three 3-light 14th-century windows at its west end and a pointed doorway with hood mould. The north transept's west aisle contains a single 3-light 14th-century cusped ogee window. The battlemented clerestory of the late 15th century displays 5 pairs of 3-light panel-traceried windows. The clerestoried north transept has 3 windows to either side, and a tall north window of 6 lights with curvilinear tracery. The east wall of the transept retains a 13th-century lancet and a short section of late 12th-century looped corbel table beneath the clerestory.

The central tower shows 13th-century form with paired belfry lights and mid-wall shafts with plate tracery featuring mandorlas and chamfered pointed surrounds. An embattled parapet is topped with a short leaded 19th-century set-back spire. Fine lead rainwater heads dated 1650 are visible.

The vestry in the angle between transept and chancel has a single 2-light window and pointed doorway. The north wall of the chancel has three 19th-century 2-light windows with cusped ogee tracery and a 5-light 19th-century east window with curvilinear tracery. The south wall of the chancel matches the north with a 14th-century lancet having a cusped ogee head. The south transept has a blocked east window and 2 clerestory lights. Its main window displays 7 lights with exceptional cusped flowing tracery enriched with daggers, mouchettes and quatrefoils. The south chapel and aisle have 3-light cusped ogee-headed windows. The clerestory on the south side matches that to the north and has dated rainwater hoppers of 1805. A gabled 19th-century south porch features a round-headed outer arch with triple shafted reveals and a recut 13th-century inner arch with roll-moulded hood and chamfered head.

The interior reveals an early 13th-century nave with 5-bay arcades on circular piers. The capitals are octagonal, some hobnailed and some with stiff leaf ornament, supporting double chamfered pointed arches. The early 13th-century crossing arch is supported on engaged triple keeled shafts with stiff leaf and waterleaf capitals and 2 stepped moulded orders. The north transept has 2 facetted double chamfered round arches to the west on circular shafts with octagonal and late 12th-century waterleaf capitals. A double chamfered round arch on the east side rests on a circular respond to the south and a figured corbel to the north. The 13th-century lancet has shafted reveals with stiff leaf capitals.

The 14th century chancel features a crocketed piscina on its south wall and a ballflower frieze. The painted 19th-century roof is elaborate. An ornate reredos by Crace is gilded and painted, flanked by 2 ogee-headed and crocketed niches. A double pointed 14th-century piscina and sedilia with segmental heads are set into the south wall. The chancel walls are painted with stencil decoration and the sanctuary has a tiled floor.

19th-century stained glass by Clayton and Bell and Hardman appears in the chancel, west window, aisles and transepts. A 13th-century Purbeck marble octagonal font stands on free-standing circular shafts.

The church contains several monuments. Two 14th-century relief effigies in the north transept, depicting a civilian and a priest, stand beneath a nodding ogee canopy. Also in the north transept is a large urn on a square base to Charles Beridge, lawyer, who died in 1782. A marble wall plaque with obelisk commemorates the Skerritt family from 1799. In the south transept are two late 18th-century marble wall plaques to members of the Beridge family with urns, and a further marble wall plaque from 1792. The south chapel contains a brass of 1678 to Basil Beridge, Rector and Patron, above which is a marble wall plaque to Charles Beridge, who died in 1778.

The Beridge family were lords of the manor and rectors at Algarkirk for approximately 300 years until the late 19th century.