Church Of St Peter Ad Vincula

Church of St Peter Ad Vincula

This is a church built between 1822 and 1826 by architects Thomas Rickman and Hutchinson, commissioned by Reverend John Lucy. The chancel and porch were added and other alterations made in 1858 by Sir Gilbert Scott. The building is constructed in limestone ashlar with slate and lead roofs, and is designed in the Decorated style.

The church comprises a single-bay chancel with a polygonal apse, a six-bay nave with lean-to aisles, a three-stage west tower, and a two-storey north porch.

Exterior details are exceptionally rich throughout. The building features a moulded plinth, top cornice and pierced crenellated parapets with pierced coped gables. Buttresses carry richly crocketed pinnacles, and window hoods have head stops with much decorative carving. The apse is polygonal with five faces, each containing three-light windows with Decorated tracery beneath arches of two orders, all set under traceried crocketed free-standing gables flanked by gabled buttresses with pinnacles and figure sculptures. The chancel's east end has pierced coping and flanking buttresses with pinnacles to tabernacles, and three-light north and south windows similar to those of the apse but with gables against the wall.

The clerestory features gabled buttresses with pinnacles, top cornice and pierced crenellated parapet. The east end is particularly ornate with octagonal pinnacles bearing cornices and pierced friezes with brattishing, while two-light windows throughout contain Decorated tracery.

The aisles have cornices and traceried parapets continued as coping, with gabled buttresses and pinnacles between three-light windows featuring cast-iron Decorated tracery. The east end of the north aisle has an entrance with continuous moulding, while the corresponding bay to the south contains a window with spherical-lozenge tracery. The west end of the north aisle has a double-cusped light.

The south porch displays a top cornice and parapet with pierced quatrefoils and large octagonal pinnacles with gabled buttresses. A canted stair turret is positioned at the buttress to the east. The entrance consists of two orders, now with glazed infill and Bishop and Queen headstops. A canopied niche above contains a statue of St Peter in chains, flanked by cusped lights above shields in panels, with a damaged gable cross at the top.

The tower has gabled buttresses and string courses throughout its stages. The tall bell stage displays octagonal pinnacles with gabled buttresses, cornice and pierced parapet with finials. The west entrance features a deep gabled portal enriched with ball-flower and stiff-leaf carving and the Lucy arms, with offset buttresses and pinnacles flanking niches. Paired plank doors with good wrought-iron work close the entrance. The north and south sides contain three-bay blind arcades, the south having a later two-light window and the north having an entrance to a canted stair turret. The second stage displays a two-light window with cast-iron tracery. The bell-stage has two-light louvred bell-openings with Decorated tracery in deep moulded arches, and the front has a clock face beneath a gable and pinnacles.

Interior

The chancel has wall shafts rising to a lierne vault. The chancel and apse arches are of four orders. Blind trefoil-headed arcading to the apse features marble shafts, foliate capitals and spandrels with crocketed gables between pinnacles, and an inlaid floor.

The nave contains tall six-bay Perpendicular arcades with wall shafts supporting plaster quadripartite rib vaulting, similar vaulting also covering the aisles.

The clerestory has cusped blind arches between windows. The 1856 tower arch features an entrance of three orders with a cinquefoil over a trumeau and pierced balustrade above, with the west windows set in shafted arched recesses.

The north aisle's east bay is enclosed by screens, each with a pointed arch and ogee gable flanked by traceried openings. The south aisle's east bay is enclosed as a vestry with a trefoil-pointed entrance to the west.

The reredos consists of five trefoil-pointed arches with crocketed gables and pinnacles. Choir stalls are richly carved with traceried canopies and iron and brass panels to their fronts. A richly carved wood pulpit stands on an ashlar base with clustered marble shafts and a handrail with metalwork by Skidmore. Two original pew ends feature cast-iron poppyheads, while other pew ends are brattished. An alabaster font contains relief panels of Biblical scenes. An 18th-century Royal Arms in the south aisle is displayed in a frame featuring Tudor and ball-flower details.

Stained glass includes the east window, dated 1826, by Willement, similar glass in some aisle windows, and decorative glass to the clerestory and west windows. Some glass in the chancel is probably by Clayton and Bell.

This is regarded as the magnum opus of Rickman and Hutchinson and represents a very good example of early 19th-century church architecture. The exceptional richness of the design is due to generous funding by the patron.