Church Of St Peter And St Paul

BIRTSMORTON CP - SO 83 NW 5/23 Church of St Peter and St Paul 25.3.68 GV II*

Church. C14, restored 1877. Stone rubble with tile roofs. Comprises a west tower, nave, lower chancel, north and south transepts, and south porch. The tower has diagonal buttresses, and a pyramid roof behind solid parapets. The bell openings are each of two trefoiled lights with a quatre- foil below a pointed head. The west window is similar. The north wall of the nave has three windows each of two trefoiled ogee lights under a pointed head with quatrefoil. Between the second and third windows is a blocked door- way with Tudor-arched head. The south wall of the nave is similar, with a doorway between the first and second windows. This is chamfered in two orders under a C19 open timber porch. The north and south windows of the transepts are both C19 and of three trefoiled lights with reticulated tracery. The south wall of the chancel has a trefoield window at the left, one of two trefoiled lights with Y-tracery, and a pointed doorway between them. All are C19. In the north wall is a window of two trefoiled lights with an opening in the head. The east window is C19, of three lights with reticulated tracery. Interior: tower arch is pointed and chamfered in two orders. The nave roof is C19 and has rafters with collars and slim arch-braced king-post trusses. The pointed chancel arch is C19 and has moulded corbels as responds. The transept arches, also pointed and C19, are chamfered in two orders and have foliated capitals as responds. The font is probably c1200 and has a round bowl on a base with chamfered plinth. The bench ends incorporate some blind tracery carving. In the upper lights of the windows are some fragments of late-medieval heraldic glass. More fragments were re-assembled in the south-east chancel window in 1940. In the east wall of the south transept is a tablet carved with a shield of arms and date "1572". Below it is a tomb chest of c1500. The top has a matrix for a brass and the sides have panels carved with kneel- ing figures and with the remains of painting. On the north side of the chancel is a large marble monument to Admiral William Caldwell, who died at Birtsmorton Court in 1718. His semi-reclining effigy rests on a tomb chest carved with his flagship. The reredos background is carved with 28 navigational instruments and is topped by flaming lamps and a cartouche with military trophies.

Listing NGR: SO8011535504