Church of St Peter is a Grade II* listed building in the East Cambridgeshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 5 February 1952. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Peter
- WRENN ID
- night-marble-violet
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- East Cambridgeshire
- Constituency
- Ely and East Cambridgeshire MP: Charlotte Cane (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 5 February 1952
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Peter, Main Street, Wentworth
- OS grid reference
- TL 480 785
- Coordinates
- 52.38504, 0.17414
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Peter is a parish church dating back to the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations in the 13th and 14th centuries. A major restoration occurred in 1868, which involved rebuilding the nave, the south porch, and reroofing the entire structure. The church is constructed from limestone and sandstone rubble, with some fieldstone, and incorporates limestone dressings. The roof is covered in plain tiles with end parapets.
The church comprises a west tower, an aisleless nave, and a chancel. The three-stage west tower, built in the 14th century, sits on a plinth with a splayed upper edge and features an embattled parapet topped with low pyramidical tiles. It has five stages of contemporary diagonal buttressing. The west window, also from the 14th century, has two cinquefoil lights set within a two-centred arch. A lancet window is located on each side of the first stage. The bell stage has two trefoil openings within a two-centred arch.
The nave was rebuilt in 1868. The south wall incorporates a 12th-century doorway, featuring a round roll moulded arch with a blank tympanum, situated on cushion capitals and twisted colonettes with moulded bases. The nave windows are in the 14th-century style. The chancel, built in the 13th century, has three lancets on its south wall, a low side window with a square head, and a south doorway with a chamfered two-centred arch. The east window is a restored 13th-century design featuring three graduated lancets. The north wall of the chancel also contains three similar 13th-century lancets. A north doorway, mirroring the south doorway, has plain colonettes.
Inside, a 14th-century tower arch is two-centred with two chamfered orders, the inner order resting on half-octagonal responds with a moulded plinth and splayed base. The roof is a 19th-century design with collar rafters and shaped bracing. The original 13th-century chancel arch is double-chamfered and rests on 1868 corbels carved with stylized leaf foliage. A plain double piscina from the 13th century features two two-centred chamfered arches divided by a colonette with a moulded capital and base. Set into the north wall is a likely reset 12th-century sculpted panel in high relief, depicting a standing figure of a priest in mass vestments, holding an open book and an aspergillum. The figure is framed by an arch supported by a twisted column with a cushion capital on the left; the right side of the panel is damaged, with architectural motifs above the arch. The rear arches of the 13th-century lancets on the north and south walls of the chancel have deep splays. A moulded and keeled string course runs at sill height, passing over the double piscina. The font is from the 13th century and consists of an octagonal limestone bowl with stiff-leaf carving below the bowl, resting on a central column and four subsidiary columns.
Local climate
Church of St Peter sits in one of the driest parts of the UK, with an average of 690 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 98% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 99% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 34 freeze-thaw cycles a year, fewer than 51% of listed buildings. Of these, 16 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
More on this building
Sign in or create a free account to unlock:
- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
- No related consent applications matched
- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
- Radon risk assessment
- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
Matched applications, energy data and sale records are assembled automatically and may contain errors. Flag incorrect data.
Similar buildings
The closest matches to this building from all 493,000 UK listed buildings, by architecture, period and materials.
this building 1 similar nearby listed buildings