Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a parish church with origins in the 13th century, significantly altered in 1640 and substantially rebuilt in 1845, with a further extension in 1871. It is constructed of coursed rubble, with slate roofs to the tower and chancel and plain tiles to the nave and north transept. The church consists of a nave, chancel, west tower, a long north transept, and a vestry.

The massive, squat west tower likely dates to the early 13th century. It features a paired lancet window on the west wall, a pointed doorway to the south from 1845, and original narrow rectangular slit openings above. The tower is capped by a distinctive “double pyramidal top,” characteristic of the local area, and probably dating to the 17th century. The roughcast belfry has two lines of wooden louvres, surmounted by a pyramidal roof with a weathercock.

The five-bay, buttressed nave of 1845 is in the lancet style, with hoodmoulds to all windows except one smaller lancet at the west end of the north wall. The continuous two-bay chancel is of the same style and date. The east window comprises two cusped lights with a cinquefoil above, and the contemporary vestry adjoins the north side. The north transept, dating from 1640, has a round-headed window on the east side, while the west window has a slightly more pointed head. The doorway in the east wall, now under a late 19th-century stone porch, has a depressed four-centred arch. The transept was extended by one bay to the north in 1871, indicated by a straight joint. While the east and west walls of the extension contain lancets, the north wall has a window with debased Y-tracery, re-used from the old north wall.

Inside, a mid-19th-century staircase with turned balusters on the north side of the tower leads to a west gallery supported on two cast-iron shafts. The nave, chancel, and southern part of the transept have hammerbeam roofs (1845), while the northern extension of the transept has a steep-pitched roof (1871). Mid-19th-century box pews, a reading desk, and a pulpit incorporate 17th-century woodwork. The tub-shaped font, set on a later pedestal, is likely medieval but its precise date is indeterminate. Roman tessellated pavement fragments, reportedly from the Linley villa excavated in 1855, are inlaid in the floor nearby. The church contains mid-19th-century and early 20th-century stained glass, and probably medieval items including a parish chest and 19th-century texts in the tower. Notable monuments are located in the north transept, originally above the burial vault of the More family (1640), as evidenced by the marble tablet on the west wall. A memorial to Harriott Mary More (died 1851) by Field of London depicts her leaning on a pedestal with an urn, with an engraved brass coat of arms in the floor before it. 18th-century funeral hatchments are displayed on the east and west walls. Two 17th-century oak presses, formerly containing the church library presented by Richard More to the churchwardens in 1680, are also present in the transept.