Church Of St Peter

Parish church. The late 14th century west tower was retained and incorporated into a largely rebuilt church of 1844, undertaken in the Perpendicular style by R.C. Hussey and funded by Miss Louisa Ann Ryland. The church is constructed of ashlar stone with pitched slate roofs. The west tower has a chamfered plinth, embattled parapet, and diagonal buttresses at the corners. It features a former doorway on the south wall, a three-light window without tracery under a two-centred head on the west wall, and a window of two trefoil lights on each elevation of the bell chamber. A clock was added to the west wall in 1844.

The north and south aisles each have five bays, with buttresses between the bays. The north aisle has five rectangular paired trefoil windows in its north wall, a three-light trefoil window in the west wall, and an organ chamber at the east end. The south aisle has four rectangular paired trefoil windows, a modern glazed entrance under a four-centred arch (now the main entrance), protected by a gabled porch, and three rectangular windows with trefoil lights. The west wall has a three-light trefoil window, and the east wall has a three-light trefoil window. Inside, the aisles are separated by five-bay arcades with two chamfered orders on polygonal piers. The nave and chancel have hammerbeam roof trusses.

The chancel is of two bays, with two rectangular trefoil windows on the south side, an external door, and three rectangular windows with trefoil lights in the north wall of the organ chamber and vestry. A three-light trefoil window is found in the vestry’s east wall. The chancel arch is a high segmental pointed arch of two chamfered orders, dying on square jambs. The east chancel window is of five trefoil lights with stained glass by Holland of Warwick, dating to 1845.

The interior features a mid-19th century font at the western end of the nave passage, box pews with poppyhead bench ends, and a 16th century iron-bound chest at the east end of the north aisle. Monuments include a tablet with a small urn in front of an obelisk to John Mills, 1791, and a mural monument to Thomas Dugard A.M., 1683, consisting of a stone tablet with Corinthian columns, an entablature, and an open pediment, with a putto head at the foot. Other monuments include draped urns to Jane Mills, 1841, Charles Mills, 1826, Frances Cattell, 1795, William Mills, 1820, and Sarah Mills, 1807. A defaced 14th century recumbent effigy of a woman lies within the tower.

The graveyard to the south of the nave has two table tombs, one to Thomas Handley, 1831, and the other to Sarah Handley, 1853, while two further table tombs to the south of the chancel commemorate Jane Cary, 1817, and an unidentified individual. Thomas Arch is buried in the churchyard.