Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

Parish church with a west tower dated 1586 and chancel dated 1588. The nave and north aisle were rebuilt in 1830. The building is constructed in ashlar with a clay tile roof featuring crested ridge tiles.

The west tower rises in three stages. Above a segmental pointed west doorway with returned hood mould is the date "ANNO DOMINI 1586". The west window above contains three trefoiled lights with panel tracery above and a hood mould terminating in animal heads. An oblong aedicule on the first stage of the south side is flanked by bracketed fluted pilasters with full entablature; its frieze is inscribed "KNOWE THY SELFFE". A sundial is positioned above. The second stage is blank except on the south side, which has a window with Y-tracery, the upper light blind. A clock is mounted on the west side. The belfry openings consist of two trefoil-headed lights with a quatrefoil above and a hood mould. The tower is finished with a crenellated parapet.

The nave and north aisle, rebuilt in 1830, feature pointed windows with cusped Y-tracery and returned hood moulds. A gabled south porch has a pointed doorway of two arches flanked by gabled angle buttresses with nook shafts carrying roll and fillet moulding. The hood mould of the porch doorway terminates in the heads of a bishop and a queen.

The chancel and north chapel have a square-headed window on the south side to the right, containing three transomed lights with basket arch heads and panel tracery above, with ovolo moulded jambs and head. A central square-headed door dated 1588 in an inscribed frieze is flanked by a shaped hood mould and an enriched band. To the left is a wall memorial consisting of an aedicule with bracketed base and moulded pilasters rising to full entablature with an enriched frieze. Two east windows, one to the chancel and one to the north chapel, are round-headed, each containing three transomed lights with trefoiled heads and perpendicular tracery above.

The interior contains a north arcade of two and a half pointed arches on octagonal piers with moulded capitals. The chancel arch is supported by semi-octagonal engaged columns with crenellated moulded capitals decorated with ballflower. A chamfered tower arch opens from the nave. The nave roof features arch-braced collars carrying a collar purlin. The chancel roof is a hammer beam design with arch-braced collars, ridge piece, and one pair of purlins.

Fittings include a stone font with octagonal stepped base and octagonal bowl, and a 19th-century octagonal wooden pulpit with blind traceried panels.

The Bernard Granville Memorial in the centre of the east end consists of an ashlar aedicule on a chest tomb against the east wall, with enriched pilasters bearing scrolls to the outside, fluted frieze, segmental headed pediment, and triangular slab above decorated with drapery motif and shield within a garland. The inscription records Bernard Granville, who died in 1775 and was grandson of Sir Bevil Granville, hero of the Civil War Battle of Lansdown.

Additional monuments include a badly mutilated alabaster chest tomb in the north chapel, probably of the 16th century, with two reclining figures on top (a man and a woman with her head resting on two cushions). The north and each end of the chest carry carved shields with heraldic arms; the south side is decorated with bird motifs. A wall memorial to John Granville (died 1800) is a marble aedicule with reeded pilasters and moulded cornice surmounted by an urn with feathered base and draped with cloth. A polished limestone wall memorial to Thomas Fleetwood (died 1735) and Robert and Ellena Allen (died 1713) is a double aedicule with fluted pilasters, bracketed base, and moulded cornice. In the north aisle, the James Unwin memorial (died 1776) is a marble plaque capped by a gadrooned urn, and the I.W.E. Wheeler memorial (died 1818) is a marble plaque with heraldic shield above.