Church of Saint Peter

Church of St Peter

This is a parish church in Great Limber, originally built in the 12th century with significant additions and alterations made in the 13th, 14th, and 16th centuries, together with various 19th-century changes and a restoration undertaken in 1875. The building is constructed of coursed ironstone and limestone rubble with limestone ashlar dressings, some yellow brick repair and patching, and slate roofs. The structure comprises a western tower, nave, chancel, south and north aisles, south porch, and vestry.

The western tower is plain with a 14th-century plinth and battlemented parapet. Corner buttresses are stepped. All faces of the tower have early 15th-century two-light belfry openings in ashlar with ogee tracery. The west face contains a 14th-century door with a triple chamfered arch and hood mould, with a 14th-century niche above it featuring an ogee head and hood mould. Beneath the belfry light is a narrow triangular opening. A clock with open face sits on the north side. In the east side of the tower, an earlier nave pitch in white limestone rubble remains visible.

The north aisle is built of square ironstone with a triple moulded plinth, the top moulding set at window sill level, and has a slightly splayed cornice and stone-coped gables. The west window is a 15th-century three-light with cusped heads and panel tracery under a semi-circular head and hood mould. A 14th-century north door, blocked in brick, is a small pointed opening with hood mould, flanked to the west by a three-light 16th-century window with panel decoration and hood mould, and to the east by three similar windows with some 19th-century mullion replacement. The north nave wall is constructed in yellow brick with a blank face, stone-coped gables, and a cross fleury at the ridge.

The chancel has been partly rebuilt in the 19th century and has a plinth and deep roll moulding at sill level, with a 19th-century two-light north window. The vestry is a 19th-century addition with similar roll moulding, a west door, and north and east windows. The east end of the chancel has stepped corner buttresses, a splayed plinth, and 19th-century roll mouldings. The east windows are 19th-century lancets. The south wall of the chancel is entirely 19th-century work in limestone ashlar with a single lancet and two-light window. A 16th-century east aisle window with three lights has a pointed head.

The south aisle has a plinth matching that on the north aisle. It has been raised, partly in brick at the ends, and has a corbelled out parapet with saddleback coping. The east window is a three-light 14th-century window with curvilinear tracery, largely recut in the 19th century, and a hood mould. The south wall has three three-light 16th-century windows with hood moulds; the easternmost has brick patching to its reveal, while the westernmost is a 20th-century restoration. Beyond the porch is a further similar window, and the west window is also a three-light example. The south porch has a reconstructed 12th-century opening with single chamfer, with side benches and single lights to both sides. The south doorway is late 13th-century, moulded and pointed.

The interior has four-bay 14th-century matching arcades with octagonal piers and double chamfered arches. The south aisle has no eastern respond; the arch terminates over an ogee-headed doorway to the rood loft stairs. The south aisle contains a cusped ogee-headed piscina, two statue brackets, and an opening at high level in the rood loft. The north aisle has an ogee-headed aumbry, a cusped-headed piscina, and a statue bracket. The nave roof is dated "1847 GF". The tower doorway is 14th-century and single chamfered. The chancel arch has 13th-century semi-circular responds and a double chamfered 14th-century arch. The chancel details are 19th-century work in the Early English style, including an aumbry, recesses, and vestry door, with a Minton tile floor. All fittings, including the rood screen, are 19th-century. Stained glass in the chancel dates to 1858 and 1862, with some fragments of medieval glass in the nave. The font is a 14th-century octagonal bowl on an octagonal base with dogtooth decoration, resting on an inverted round column with eight attached shafts bearing fine late 12th-century stiff leaf capitals. At the west end of the nave is a group of early 19th-century marble wall tablets, and at the west end of the south aisle is a black marble tablet commemorating the Reverend T. Walkden, died 1778.