Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

A church built in 1866 by C. Buckeridge, located on Radway Tysoe Road. It is constructed of regular coursed Hornton ironstone with tile roofs featuring cresting to the chancel, aisles and organ chamber, and coped gable parapets. The building is designed in the Gothic Revival style.

The church comprises an aisled nave with three bays, a chancel with three bays, a west tower, a north organ chamber and south porch. Throughout the building, a splayed plinth runs with angle buttresses featuring two offsets and a moulded string course with fillet at sill height. The chancel has additional moulding to the plinth.

The chancel's east window is a three-light window with intersecting tracery, each light having a trefoil at its top with a trefoiled lancet below and elongated quatrefoil tracery, all beneath a hood mould with head stops. The north and south sides of the chancel have eastern windows of paired trefoiled lancets. The south side features a central chamfered shouldered doorway with a string course stepped up over it as a hood mould, along with an eastern trefoiled lancet. The aisles are similarly detailed. The south aisle has a two-light east window with tracery similar to the chancel, a south door in place of the western window with chamfered arch and hood mould with head stops, and double-leaf doors.

The south porch has a double splayed plinth and a doorway of two chamfered orders and hood mould with head stops. The gable apex features a sexfoiled circular IHS panel. The porch sides have small windows of paired trefoiled round arched lights, with stone benches in the interior. The north and south aisle sides have windows of two trefoiled lights in a straight head with pierced spandrel and hood mould with return stops. West windows feature two trefoiled lights and a trefoil. The north organ chamber and vestry has an east window of a single trefoiled ogee light in a straight head with hood mould. Two north windows are smaller, simpler versions of aisle windows, without hood moulds.

The tower is four stages tall with string courses. West angle and north-east and south-east buttresses feature three offsets to three stages, with a double splayed plinth. The second stage has a west window of two trefoiled lights and elongated quatrefoil. The third stage has three narrow rectangular lights to three faces. The west front displays two badly eroded gargoyles, possibly from a previous church. The bell stage has two-light openings to each face with plate tracery of trefoiled lights and a trefoiled circle, beneath a moulded cornice. The broach spire has small central gablets with trefoil openings and string courses.

The interior chancel contains a piscina and recessed seat below. An arched door connects to the vestry. The string course is stepped down below the seat and up over doors. An arch to the organ chamber features two chamfered orders and a hood mould, with the inner order dying into the wall. The chancel has a wagon roof. The Early English style chancel arch features two orders: the outer is chamfered on shafts of contrasting grey stone, the inner with roll mouldings to both chancel and nave on half-shafts. Hood moulds with head stops face the nave. Stiff leaf capitals and moulded bases support the arch. The nave has three-bay Early English style arcades of two chamfered orders. Compound shafts with moulded capitals of grey stone and moulded bases are topped with continuous hood moulds springing from stiff leaf corbels. To the east, arches die into walls without responds; to the west, responds have the inner order on a half-shaft and the outer order carried straight down to a square base. The roof is a scissor brace rafter roof with collars and ashlar pieces. The tower arch features three chamfered orders, with the outer continuous. The inner orders have composite half-shafts and moulded bases and capitals with nailhead ornament. A north aisle opening to the organ chamber is the left half of an arch of two chamfered orders, the outer stilted, the inner dying into the wall. The aisles have common rafter roofs with collars and ashlar pieces.

Fittings include a reredos of white marble with granite colonnettes featuring three cinqfailed arches with stiff leaf capitals. The chancel floor is laid in encaustic tiles. An octagonal oak pulpit features panels of two blind trefoiled ogee arches with carved spandrels and frieze, set on a round stone base turning octagonal. Original pews and a lectern remain in the church. A stone font has a lobed bowl and composite stem.

Stained glass includes four panels of 16th and 17th century Flemish glass in the south aisle east window. A small fragment of glass in the chancel south-west window is said to have come from Edgehill Tower. The chancel east and south-east windows contain 19th century glass.

The church contains several monuments from a previous church. The chancel has a north tomb recess with a stilted arch and a mid-15th century effigy of a priest. The tower south wall displays a monument to Henry Kingsmill, who died at the Battle of Edgehill in 1642, with a damaged effigy in an arched recess and a fine incised slab dated 1670 showing an elaborate coat of arms and fine lettering. Above is a recess for Charles Hughes (died 1734) with a large cartouche, and above that a monument to Charles Chambers (died 1854), a finely carved wall monument with predella showing a naval expedition and long detailed inscription. The tower north wall contains a plain tablet to Sanderson Miller (died 1780), a mid-18th century wall monument to Sanderson Miller senior, and a tablet to F.S. Miller (died 1817).