Parish Church Of St Peter And Paul

Parish Church of St Peter and Paul

This is a parish church of medieval foundation, with construction and alterations spanning from the 12th century through the 19th century. The building is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with ashlar quoins and dressings, under plain tiled and leaded roofs. It comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, and a south porch.

The 13th-century west tower rises in three stages and features a roll-moulded plinth, chamfered string courses, a plain parapet, and clasped corner buttresses. The belfry stage contains reticulated two-light 14th-century cusped ogee-headed belfry lights with quatrefoils, wave-moulded surrounds, and hollow-moulded heads. The west wall has a single lancet opening.

The north aisle includes a blocked 13th-century doorway and three three-light 15th-century windows with cusped heads to the lights and chamfered four-centred arched heads. A tall matching three-light window occupies the east wall.

The 14th-century chancel has a chamfered plinth and plain parapet. Its north wall contains three two-light windows with ogee tracery to the steeply pointed cusped lights, all set within hollow-chamfered surrounds. The south wall features a 17th-century four-light east window with cusped tracery to the tall lights and a cinquefoil above, together with three windows matching those to the north and a plain four-centred arched priest's door. The 14th-century south aisle displays a wider three-light window and two further three-light windows with curved intersecting tracery to the heads, daggers, and ogee tracery.

The 14th-century gabled south porch has a moulded triple engaged-shafted outer doorway with annular impost and double-chamfered arch, flanked by set-back gabled buttresses. The side walls feature cusped ogee-headed panels above benches supported on engaged annular shafts. The inner doorway also has engaged-shafted reveals, moulded annular imposts, and a moulded head.

Interior

The four-bay nave arcades contain 13th-century octagonal filleted piers and double-chamfered arches with hollow-moulded heads. A circular respond marks the west end of the south arcade. The tower arch, originally 13th-century with double-chamfered profile, is now blocked by an early 18th-century four-panelled door. A tall 14th-century double-chamfered chancel arch with engaged-shafted reveals and moulded octagonal imposts separates the nave from the chancel.

In the south-east angle of the nave stands a statue bracket with a human face carved to its underside. The south aisle contains a four-centred arched doorway to the rood loft and a brattished statue bracket, together with a crocketed trilobed outline in red paint. The north aisle holds a plain piscina and an elaborately decorated statue bracket with brattishing and panels bearing shields and chevrons.

The chancel's south wall displays a fine 14th-century sedilia with cusped moulded ogee-arched heads adorned with crockets, human-head stops, and foliate terminals. Adjacent is a contemporary piscina with cusped ogee-arched opening. The north wall contains an aumbry with ogee head.

The church retains a 12th-century circular tub font decorated with pelleted intersecting blank arcading to the sides and hobnail decoration to the rim. Fittings include a 19th-century carved oak pulpit and pews; the lower panels of the 14th-century chancel screen survive, displaying fleurons and cusped mouchettes. The nave contains a fine collection of 14th-century oak bench ends carved with subjects including St George and the Dragon, Adam and Eve, and Reynard the Fox, along with cusped blank arcading and foliage. At the west end of the nave hangs a painted Royal Arms of George III dated 1797, a raised and fielded charity board, a triptych of Commandment boards with a painted figure of Mary in the centre by T. Philips of Bourne, and a further painted panel depicting a High Priest.

The church contains two notable monuments in the north aisle: a plaque to William Greene, yeoman, died 1722, featuring fluted Doric pilasters supporting acanthus-leaf capitals and a round arch, by Robert Copeland; and a similar monument to John Greene, died 1720, with scrolls and a death's head to an oval panel.