Church of St Peter

Church of St Peter

The Church of St Peter in Bengeworth was built in 1871–72 by the architect T.H. Barry of Liverpool at a cost of £4500. It replaced an earlier church on a different site that was considered beyond repair. The building is constructed of coursed grey lias with Bath stone dressings and has a slate roof.

The church is designed in the Decorated style with an asymmetrical plan comprising an aisled four-bay nave with transepts, a lower and narrower chancel, a south tower and spire, a south-east organ chamber and vestry, and a north vestry. The three-stage tower has diagonal buttresses with gable offsets. A south doorway opens into a porch and features ballflower decoration in the arch. The second stage displays a two-light west window and two narrow cusped lancets in the south and east faces. Triple belfry windows have transoms and cusped tracery lights, below a tall broach stone spire with lucarnes, partly obscured by clock faces. The south aisle has two-light windows, while the modest west front includes a west doorway with two orders of nook shafts with foliage capitals and a four-light west window. Angle buttresses have gabled caps. The clerestorey features two-light windows. The transepts display four-light south and north windows, with the north transept also having a two-light east window. The chancel has diagonal buttresses, a five-light east window and two two-light north windows. The organ chamber has a trefoil-headed doorway, two-light south and east windows, and a modern brick stack set back from the east wall. On the north side stands a double-gabled vestry with a low addition to the north-west.

The interior features nave arcades with round piers of polished Westmorland granite, octagonal foliage capitals and double-chamfered arches. The nave has a six-bay arched-brace roof with subsidiary closely-spaced scissor rafters. The transepts have trussed rafter roofs. The Decorated chancel arch has an inner order on corbelled shafts with stiff-leaf capitals. The chancel contains a canted boarded ceiling painted blue with gilded moulded ribs. A corbelled piscina is positioned on the north side, while the south side has two sedilia under ogee heads with a central serpentine polished marble shaft. Walls are plastered and the floor is laid with boards, except for tiles in the porch below the tower and at the east end of the nave.

The church contains several important fixtures. Two principal monuments in the south transept were brought from the old church. A Renaissance wall monument to Thomas Watson (died 1561) is framed by Ionic columns, foliage entablature and a pediment with skull. A large Baroque monument to John Deacle (died 1709) is attributed to Francis Bird and depicts the deceased as a full-length reclining figure on a sarcophagus, below an inscription on a drapery panel framed by pilasters, broken pediment and achievement. Other wall monuments commemorate Mrs Frances Watson (died 1727) and William Acton (died 1817). The font has a round bowl on an octagonal stem and base and dates probably to the 14th or 15th century; it was brought here from the old church in 1917. Two pointed boards with the Commandments, Lord's Prayer and Creed are fixed to the east wall.

The polygonal pulpit is constructed of Caen stone on a pedestal with detached marble shafts and features heads of Christ and Saints Peter and John. Choir stalls of 1926 by Sprague & Evans have Gothic blind-tracery ends. A rood beam was erected in 1934 with rood figures by Alec Miller of Chipping Campden. The stone reredos has cusped arches with relief foliage and angels over the spandrels. Other fixtures date from 1872 or later.

The church contains numerous stained glass windows. Four windows from 1872 by W.H. Constable of Cambridge include the east window. The chancel contains an Adoration of the Magi by Wippell & Co (1921), and the south aisle features a Presentation by Curtis, Ward and Hughes (1903). Three aisle windows are by Albert Lemmon (1889–1963) of the Bromsgrove Guild, showing Joseph (1937), the legend of the founding of Evesham (1954) and Good Shepherd and Good Samaritan. The transept windows contain coloured glass by Thomas Holt of Liverpool. Glass for the new church was supplied by W.H. Constable of Cambridge.

The north-west vestry was added in 1912–13 by C.E. Bateman and G.H. Hunt, and was extended in 1991–92 by Patrick J. Burton, architect of Evesham.

In the churchyard is an octagonal Perpendicular font bowl with quatrefoils. On the south and east sides facing Port Street stands a stone wall with gate piers, iron railings and gates.