Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

This parish church spans from the 11th century to the 17th century, constructed in coursed limestone rubble with ashlar dressings, lead and plain tiled roof. The building comprises a western tower, nave with two aisles, chancel, south chapel and porch.

The unbuttressed western tower dates from the 13th century and is built in coursed rubble with quoins. It has a moulded plinth, two string courses, and rises in three stages. A small stair turret occupies the south east corner, with a plain doorway adjacent. The west face contains a 15th-century two-light window with a rectangular niche above it, piercing the string course. The second stage features a small round-headed window. The third stage displays 13th-century double belfry lights with colonettes and blank trefoils in the tympana on all faces except the east, which has a single opening above the original steep pitch of the nave. The tower is crowned with a 14th-century broach spire with three tiers of lucarnes: the lower two positioned in the compass directions and the top tier in the diagonals. The spire carries a fine weathervane.

Long and short Anglo Saxon quoins are exposed at the north west corner of the nave, with a small flaring arm rood on the fourth stone up. These quoins stand proud of the nave wall, probably to act as a stop for original external plaster. Further Anglo Saxon quoins are exposed at the north east corner of the nave.

The north aisle has a lead roof with a plinth on its north face and a plain moulded parapet. It features two stepped buttresses and a larger east buttress containing the rood loft stair. The north door is 15th-century with a square hood mould, flanked to the west by a 15th-century two-light window and to the east by a pair of 14th-century two-light windows. The east aisle window is a 14th-century light with curvilinear tracery and hood mould with human mask stops. The north clerestorey has a plain parapet with a lead roof behind, drained by two grotesque gargoyles. Two 15th-century windows here have two lights under shallow four-centre heads with hood moulds.

The chancel is in dressed rubble with a plain tiled roof, stone coped gable with cross fleury to the ridge. Its north side has a 17th-century two-light cross-mullioned window with ogee heads under a square shallow hood mould. The east window is similar with three lights, set between clasping corner buttresses. The south side has two string courses between which sits a 12th-century round-headed single light. A 14th-century ogee tomb recess with damaged decoration indicates the chancel was shortened in the 17th century.

The south chapel has a shallow lead roof behind a raised gable on the east side, lit by a 14th-century two-light window. On the south side, a small 14th-century priest's door is flanked to the east by a small 15th-century altar window and to the west by a 16th-century three-light window and a 15th-century single light. The chapel is early 13th-century with one bay of triple responds and a double-chamfered round arch, containing a 14th-century piscina and aumbry.

The south aisle has a splayed base and plain moulded parapet concealing a lead roof drained by two gargoyles. Stepped buttresses mark both ends. Two large 15th-century three-light windows stand east of the porch, with a small niche or light to the west. The porch has a panelled parapet with shields in quatrefoils and three pinnacles to the gables, the one at the ridge containing a niche. The opening is set between angle buttresses with a hood mould featuring foiled circles in the spandrels. An inscription above reads "Hac non vade via, nisi dicas Ave Maria" (go not away unless you say an Ave Maria). The 15th-century south door has a niche over it and an inscription recording the porch's construction in 1486. The south clerestorey matches the north with four windows under a continuous hood mould.

Interior

The three-bay south arcade of 13th-century double-chamfered arches has keeled responds which would originally have been flanked by two smaller piers. A circular eastern pier and replacement octagonal western pier survive. An inscription on the octagonal pier reads "ista columna facta fuit ad festum Sancta Michaelis Anno Damini MCCCLXXX at nomen factoris Thomas Bate de Corby" (This column was made for the feast of St. Michael in the year of our Lord 1380 and the name of the maker was Thomas Bate of Corby).

The 12th-century three-bay north arcade has circular piers, square abacii with nicked corners, heavily scalloped capitals, and round arches with one step, one chamfer and a half roll. A small piscina sits in the south aisle. The north aisle contains the rood loft stairs, which lead to the loft via an unusual triangular arched bridge decorated with carved faces, including two very small ones. Beside the east north aisle window is a tiny pointed niche for a relic.

The tower arch is a recut 13th-century opening. The chancel arch is 13th-century and matches the south arcade. The nave roof is 15th-century, braced with human mask corbels. The chancel features a 14th-century aumbry on its north wall and a 14th-century double niche or sedilia on its south side.

The 18th-century altar rails are fitted as a rail to the chancel. The pews are 19th-century although some retain 15th-century poppy-head bench ends. The pulpit is 20th-century. The octagonal font is 15th-century with shields in quatrefoils.

A monument in the south aisle under a recess depicts a 14th-century lady with her head resting on two cushions beneath an ogee canopy carved with further small figures, probably her children. The east window of the north aisle contains remnants of medieval glass and a small fragment of an inscription reading "de Welby". An engraving by Fowler dated 1809 shows this window before damage and confirms it referred to Sir John Welby of 1376.

The porch was built by Bishop Richard Fox, founder of Corpus Christi College, Oxford, who was born in Ropsley in 1447 or 1448.