Parish Church Of St Peter

Parish church of St Peter, Threekingham

This is a substantial parish church dating from the 12th, 13th and 14th centuries, with a spire that was restored in 1872. It is built of coursed limestone rubble and ashlar with lead and Collyweston slate roofs. The building comprises a west tower with broach spire, nave, chancel, north and south aisles, and a south porch.

The west tower is a three-stage structure of the 13th century, with coursed rubble to the lower stages and ashlar above. It features a chamfered plinth and string courses with gabled set-back angle buttresses. The belfry stage contains paired louvered lights with clustered mid-shafts and pointed heads, surrounded by quatrefoils and moulded shafted surrounds. The spire has three tiers of gabled lucarnes alternating in direction, with pairs of cusped trefoil-headed lights to the lower stage and single lights to the upper tiers.

The exterior walls are fenestrated with a variety of windows of different dates. The south wall of the tower contains a plain lancet, whilst the north wall has a large triple-chamfered pointed window. The west wall of the north aisle has a single small lancet. The north wall is pierced by five three-light 14th-century windows with cusped ogee heads to the lights, mouchettes and quatrefoils in chamfered pointed surrounds, and to the east is a single three-light window matching these. A 13th-century doorway with hollow moulded head and engaged side shafts with annular capitals is also present.

The north wall of the chancel contains one-and-a-half bays of a blocked late 12th-century arcade with stiff-leaf foliage to the round capitals and roll-moulded arches. To the east is a single 12th-century round-headed window with roll-moulded surround and head, above which is a short section of reset contemporary corbel table. The chancel east wall contains three round-headed 12th-century windows with roll-moulded surrounds and continuous hoods. The south wall of the chancel has a 14th-century two-light window with trefoil heads to the lights and a chamfered rectangular surround, together with a blocked pointed window and a small triangular-headed chamfered priest's door.

The south aisle has a chamfered plinth and plain parapet. To the east is a 14th-century two-light window with 19th-century cusped Y-tracery. To the south are three three-light windows in pointed chamfered 14th-century surrounds, now fitted with 19th-century cusped flowing tracery. There is also a single 14th-century window of three lights in a rectangular surround with similar tracery. At the west end of the aisle is cut a sundial dated 1688, inscribed 'The gift of Edmund Hutchinson, Gentleman'.

The gabled south porch has a double-chamfered outer arch with hollow-moulded hood and human-headed stops. Inside are side benches, chamfered pointed blank side arches, and cusped Y-traceried two-light side windows. The inner door is 13th-century with side shafts, annular capitals and a moulded head with floriate stops.

Interior

The interior contains a five-bay north nave arcade with three round pillars with moulded annular capitals and a filleted quatrefoil pillar, with to the west a stiff-leaf decorated triple-shafted respond. The four moulded and pointed western arches are 13th-century, whilst the eastern arch is 12th-century with a moulded round head. The south arcade has an engaged octagonal western respond, single round and octagonal pillars, and a quatrefoil pillar matching that to the north. The arches of the south arcade are double-chamfered. A 13th-century tower arch has triple engaged-shafted reveals and a heavily moulded head. The nave and chancel have 14th-century tie-beam roofs with moulded principals to the eastern section.

The chancel contains the finely carved rear arches of the 12th-century east windows with roll mouldings, annular capitals and human heads. In the side walls are two 19th-century double aumbries with moulded round heads. In the south wall is a 13th-century piscina with a cambered arched opening and a single shaft with a foliate capital. In the north wall is a blocked 12th-century arch with a moulded round head.

Fittings include 19th-century carved panelling and reredos to the chancel, brass altar rails and a marble pulpit. The font is a tapering circular structure of the early 13th century with blank pointed arcades to the upper parts and a black-letter inscription to the splayed plinth.

Monuments

Notable monuments include two large redundant figures at the west end of the nave of a knight and his lady, apparently Sir Lambert de Trikyngham (died 1280) and his wife. The knight is clad in chain mail and surcoat with a shield and feet resting on a lion; the lady is in a flowing gown with feet resting on a hound. Near the south door are three 14th-century tapering ledger slabs, one with a cross fleury.

On the east wall of the north aisle is a marble wall monument to William Fysher (died 1674), with fluted Doric pilasters with roses in the necking supporting a triglyph frieze and escutcheon flanked by urns. In the south aisle is a small slate wall monument to Edward Dawson (died 1787), featuring a wreathed patera and swagged urn on a rectangular panel with rounded ends, by Casswell, Sculptor.