Church of St Peter

Church of St Peter

This is a parish church located on Church Lane in Laneham. It dates from the 12th to 15th centuries and was substantially restored in 1891, with the porch undergoing further restoration in 1932. The building is constructed in ashlar and dressed coursed rubble, with lead roofs behind parapets and buttressed walls. It comprises a 12th-century tower, nave with north aisle, south porch, and chancel.

The tower is 12th-century in origin and features 15th-century diagonal buttresses and battlements. The west face has a double chamfered pointed arch doorway with continuous hood mould. Above this is an arched two-light window with Y tracery and continuous hood mould, topped by a carved human head at the apex. The four bell chamber openings each contain a pair of arched lights with hood mould and label stops, with a small carved human head at the centre of the western opening.

The north aisle is set upon a plinth with a moulded band above. It is diagonally buttressed and features a single pointed arched light with hood mould in its west wall. The north wall has a chamfered pointed arched doorway with a damaged hood mould, and two 14th-century three-light windows with reticulated tracery, cusping, hood moulds, label stops, and flat arches. The east wall contains a single-arched three-light 14th-century window with cusped tracery.

The chancel was heightened in the 15th century and retains 12th-century herringbone masonry on its north-west side. The north wall has a chamfered pointed arched doorway and a 14th-century three-light window with cusped reticulated tracery under a flat arch with hood mould and label stops. The angle-buttressed east end features a 19th-century five-light arched window with cusping, hood mould, and label stops. The south chancel wall contains a single arched and cusped light with hood mould, a 13th-century lancet to its left, and further left a two-light window with single stone mullion under a flat arch with hood mould and label stops.

The south nave contains some 12th-century herringbone masonry and features two three-light windows with tracery, cusping, hood moulds, and label stops. The right-hand stops of one window are carved as human heads. The south porch was rebuilt in 1932 using 14th-century timber salvage. It is timber-framed with studded panels set on an ashlar plinth and a tile roof with decorative bargeboard. The inner arched and restored doorway features a reputedly 12th-century wooden door with long iron hinges and scroll work. The doorway has an inner order of 12th-century roll moulding flanked by two slim colonnettes with late 12th-century waterleaf capitals supporting 12th-century arches decorated with zigzag on front and soffit and enriched with rosettes. The hood mould is decorated with globular quatrefoils.

The interior reveals 13th-century work, particularly in the three-bay arcade with complex moulded pointed arches supported on columns with eight shafts. The alternating shafts are decorated with fillets, and each column sits upon a square base. Single fleur-de-lys flank the central arch. The blocked 12th-century tower arch, now with a low doorway containing a wooden door under a flat arch, is surmounted by a carved grotesque above the west doorway. The 12th-century chancel arch has an outer order of roll moulding supported on scalloped capitals and engaged columns, with an inner arch of square edges resting on imposts. The south chancel wall contains a rectangular niche and piscina. To the left of the south doorway are remnants of an aumbry.

A 12th-century round ashlar font, decorated with tall arcades, is set into the base of an arcade pier. The panelled pulpit, inscribed "Soli Deo Honor Et Gloria", and plain chamfered benches are 17th-century. A panelled vestry screen is 18th-century. Two oak chests with iron fittings survive: one in the nave is large and decorated with three rosettes, possibly 13th-century, while the second, in the vestry, is plain and 16th-century. The base of the altar table, decorated around the edges with a scroll pattern, is 16th-century. An early 19th-century alms board hangs on the south nave wall. The eastern-most window of the south aisle retains a fragment of 14th-century stained glass depicting the Virgin enthroned. The nave roof is 17th-century.

The north aisle contains two monuments: one to Grace Minnitt (1835) and one to William Minnett and his children (1827), both plain and surmounted by single urns. The chancel houses a large, fine, and elaborate restored alabaster monument to Ellis Markham and his son Jervase (1636). It comprises two kneeling figures facing east and dressed in early 17th-century garments. The background features a classical aedicule with Corinthian columns supporting an open pediment with foliate decoration on the soffit and supporting two skulls and a central helmet. A bracket decorated with a cherub's head appears beneath the apex of the pediment. The inscription is surrounded by carved garlands. Several 18th and 19th-century floor slabs remain in place.