Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

A parish church in coursed sandstone with limestone dressings and tiled roofs, built in 1880 by F R Kempson with a tower added in 1909.

The church comprises a three-bay nave with south porch, two-bay chancel with organ chamber and vestry, and a projecting west tower. The west tower has three stages with a stone spire, side buttresses with quoins extending to the top of the centre stage, and a wrought iron and copper weathercock. The lowest stage features a chamfered trefoiled lancet with moulded label and foliated stops. The centre stage displays a clock face, and the top stage has trefoil-headed bell openings under gables to each cardinal point.

The north elevation of the nave has a high plinth with string course and windows arranged 2:3:1, all trefoiled lancets, with a stone eaves cornice, verge and gable cross to the east. The vestry and organ chamber have a pair of lancets on the right-hand side and a ledged door in a two-centred arch reached by stairs with a parapet rising from the left. Above the doorway a string steps down to the left corner, and a gable contains a pair of lancets with labels and stops with a corbelled gablet in the apex. To the right of the stairs a second stair descends to a cellar with a west-facing doorway. Behind the organ chamber stands a gabled stack with a cylindrical shaft.

The east elevation displays a 3-light window under a two-centred head with label and foliated stops, the lights being stepped lancets with tracery of a quatrefoil flanked by two trefoils. Beneath the high cill is a moulded string, with kneelers, verges and a gable cross. A trefoil-headed light to the vestry has a hoodmould which returns along the north elevation.

The south elevation of the chancel has a string returning from the east end for about two feet only. To the left is a 3-light window of three lancets with trefoiled heads and jambs in four orders, with a continuous label with foliated stops to each end. The nave has four trefoiled lancets linked by ashlared walling, with a similar lancet to the left of the south porch. The south porch has a two-centred arch with two deeply roll-moulded continuous orders and hoodmould, the jambs having foliated stops at their feet. Weathered clasping buttresses flank each corner. The gable has kneelers, verge and stone cross, with returns each having a pair of lancets with continuous roll-moulded heads and jambs. A ledged two-leaved softwood door with strap hinges opens into the porch, which has a wagon roof. The south doorway features a two-centred moulded head of two orders, the inner filleted one being continuous except where crossed by a chamfered impost, with jambs having foliated feet and a ledged oak door with scrolled strap hinges.

Attached to the chancel wall is a tapered coffin lid approximately six feet six inches high by two feet wide, with an incised shaft and cross in circle, possibly dating from the 13th century.

The interior has a wagon roof to the nave, and that above the ceiling of the chancel is probably of the same form. The chancel contains a piscina with trefoiled head, chamfered jambs with pyramidal stops and deep quatrefoil drain. To the right are two-seat sedilia with similar but larger heads supported by a central grey column and attached columns to the sides, all with foliated capitals. The piscina and sedilia are linked by a continuous hoodmould with foliated stops which runs into the string on the east wall. A cinquefoil-headed recess of three continuous orders in the north wall has a deeply moulded cill also of three orders. A doorway with shouldered head leads into the vestry, and a large chamfered two-centred arch opens to the organ chamber.

The limestone reredos has three panels surmounted by crocketted gables and divided by marble columns, depicting scenes from the Resurrection. Oak communion rails with a central opening have brass finials on the inner ends and are supported on brass shafts with waist bands. Two sets of choir stalls flank each side, the rear ones with moulded arms and the front with brattished tops to the desks and integral benches with quatrefoiled panels. A book rest stands at the west end of each side. The organ, from the late 19th to early 20th century, has an oak cabinet with exposed pipes and two manuals, above which is the inscription "UNIVERSITY/ORGAN". The vestry contains a print of the church with elevation and interior view, and a drawing of the old Bullinghope Church reportedly made about 1830.

The chancel arch has a label and headstops, two centres and two deeply moulded orders, the inner one rising from grey stone shafts supported on corbels. The nave has an unusual stone wall monument on the west wall with an achievement in a sconce above an inscription for Danel in the form of a cartouche surrounded by naval memorabilia. A tablet beneath indicates that the monument was removed from the ruined walls of the old church in 1894. Several other wall monuments, also removed from the old church, are nearby, including one for C J P Glinn Commander RN. A large white marble kneeling angel holding a sconce, in lieu of a font, commemorates Frances Fisher, who died in 1878. On the north wall is a framed parchment Roll of Honour for seven men who died between 1914 and 1919, and Winifred Aulsebrook, killed at Rotherwas Ordnance Factory in 1920.

The church has sometimes been described as being in Bullingham Parish, probably due to the adjacent parish of Lower Bullingham.