Parish Church Of St Peter

Parish church of St Peter at North Rauceby. The building spans the 12th to 15th centuries, with the chancel rebuilt by S.S. Teulon in 1853. It is constructed of coursed limestone rubble and ashlar with decorative plain tiled and lead roofs.

The church comprises a west tower and spire, clerestoried nave, north and south aisles, south porch, chancel and vestry. The three-stage west tower is built of coursed rubble to its lower stages and features a roll moulded plinth, facetted string courses and stepped set-back buttresses. The broach spire carries four paired gabled lancets at its base with dog tooth surrounds and two tiers of lucarnes above in alternating directions. The belfry stage contains tall two-light louvered openings with clustered midwall shafts and reveals, pointed heads to the lights and round-headed moulded and keeled surrounds flanked by blank pointed panels with side shafts. The middle stage has single lancets to the side walls, and to the west is a two-light 14th-century window with simple flowing tracery in a moulded and pointed surround.

The west end of the south aisle contains a two-light 13th-century window with trefoil heads to the lights, a trilobe and a chamfered pointed surround. The west wall of the north aisle has a two-light 19th-century window with cusped tracery. The north aisle features a small plain round-headed doorway and two 14th-century three-light windows with reticulated tracery and wave-moulded pointed surrounds, together with a pointed and chamfered doorway. The 15th-century clerestory has five broad three-light windows with cusped heads to the lights and chamfered triangular surrounds. In the east wall is a 14th-century two-light window with cusped Y-tracery.

The 19th-century chancel contains single two- and three-light windows to the north with elaborate cusped flowing tracery, and in the east wall of the vestry is a reset two-light 14th-century window with reticulated tracery in a moulded rectangular surround. The chancel east window consists of five lights with cusped flowing tracery and a circle to the head. The south wall of the chancel has a priest's door with elaborate ogee-arched head and canopy carved with the Sacred Monogram, flanked by single two- and three-light windows, and to the right a further three-light window, all with heavily cusped tracery in a loosely 14th-century style. Above is a pierced trefoil parapet. The south nave wall contains two reticulated windows of three lights and a flowing-traceried window, also of three lights, all in pointed and roll-moulded surrounds. The southern clerestory matches the northern.

The gabled 13th-century south porch has a triple chamfered outer arch with paired angle shafts and hobnail annular capitals, with side benches. The 14th-century inner door has a continuously wave-moulded and pointed surround. Above is an empty contemporary niche with crocketed ogee-arched canopy.

The interior features three-bay double-chamfered 13th-century nave arcades with filleted quatrefoil pillars to the north side and additional angle shafts to the south. The south arcade has moulded capitals with hobnailing and engaged octagonal responds. The 13th-century tower arch has engaged shafted reveals and a double-chamfered head. Above is an offset 12th-century round-headed doorway and an earlier nave roof scar. The 13th-century reset chancel arch has single-shafted reveals, annular capitals with hobnailing and a pointed moulded head. The 15th-century cambered tie-beam roof features moulded principals and plain rolled corbels.

In the south aisle is a 14th-century tomb recess with shafted reveals and moulded triangular head, together with a reset 14th-century piscina with cusped ogee-arched head and matching aumbry in the east wall with mutilated statue bracket and canopy above. The north aisle has a matching bracket and a plain chamfered doorway to the rood loft. The north wall of the chancel has a triangular-headed doorway to the vestry, and the arch-braced roof is supported on angel corbels.

The fittings include a 19th-century panelled oak reredos, an octagonal ashlar pulpit with trefoil-headed panels and brattishing, and in the aisles a set of good reused 14th-century poppyhead bench ends with trilobed panels and foliage. The font is a recut 15th-century panelled ashlar octagonal example with fleurons to the sides and quatrefoils to the base.

The monuments include a 14th-century effigy of a lady in the north aisle carved in low relief with head on a cushion and plain ogee-arched canopy. The south aisle contains a ledger slab with stepped cross to William Frank, died 1385. In the vestry is a small brass to William Styrley, priest, dated 1536, depicting the deceased in full mass vestments. On the north wall of the chancel is an elaborate alabaster wall monument in the Gothic taste to Anthony Willson, died 1866, builder of the chancel, in the form of a crocketed gable with side shafts, fleurons and a pair of angels.