Church of St Peter and St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul, Wisbech

The Church of St Peter and St Paul was constructed in the 12th century and substantially rebuilt in the 14th century, with further alterations made in the 15th, 16th, and 19th centuries. It is built from stone with Barnack limestone dressings and a lead roof.

The church comprises two naves under one roof, with aisles to north and south. The chancel extends from the north nave, while the south nave is matched by a south chapel and vestry. The church is entered through a porch on the south aisle. The tower was originally built as a separate structure and is now joined to the north aisle.

South Elevation

The south aisle is lit by alternating three and four cinquefoil lights, with a south chapel and vestry to the east. Both chapel and vestry contain priest's doors. The aisle has buttresses with offsets marking each bay and corner buttresses, which continue along the south chapel and vestry with angle buttresses at the east end. A two-storey 14th-century porch with angle buttresses surrounds the south door of the church. The porch doorway has a 14th-century moulded label with continuous outer order over a moulded two-centred arch springing from moulded capitals with attached shafts. Above the doorway sits a late 17th-century sundial with a shaped pediment containing an ouroboros. A seven-bay clerestorey with windows of alternate two and three lights sits above the leaded roof of the south aisle.

East Elevation

The east elevation comprises the vestry, south chapel, and chancel. The vestry is lit by a five-trefoil light window under a depressed hood mould, and the crenelated gable is decorated with quatrefoils and shields. The east window of the chapel, visible over the vestry gable, comprises a five-trefoil light traceried window. The east window of the chancel, which is 19th-century in date, comprises five lights under a hexapartite roundel.

North Elevation

The chancel includes two three-cinquefoil light windows and two two-cinquefoil light windows, all with quatrefoils above. The nave is lit by two three-cinquefoil light windows and a four-light window. A seven-bay clerestorey of three-light windows sits over the leaded roof of the north aisle. The chancel bays are marked by buttresses with offsets and angle buttresses at the east end. The nave has angled buttresses at the west end and a corner buttress with a statue in a niche above the second offset at the east end. The bays are marked with buttresses, though one has been removed.

The north door is blocked by an external tower of three stages, built in ashlar. The plinth comprises a band of quatrefoils, and there are bands of shields at belfry floor and parapet levels. The windows are of two lights with embattled transoms under two-centred arches, and the entrance is a two-centred arch with the arms of St Peter and St Paul in the spandrels. Carved panels depicting the arms of Canterbury and Ely, the Wheel of St Catherine, and the chalice and host sit above the belfry lights. The tower is supported by set-back buttresses with six offsets, capped by gables. The offsets are marked on the tower by string courses. The parapet of the tower has pierced, stepped crenellations and corner pinnacles, and the tower itself is capped with a low lead-covered spire.

West Elevation

The west elevation is centred around the polygonal stair turret for the former tower, now capped by a pepper-pot bell cote. To the right is a large 14th-century five-trefoil light window with flowing tracery above, while to the left is a deeply recessed 12th-century door with a 19th-century four-trefoil light window with 14th-century-styled tracery above.

Interior

The north nave arcade dates to the 12th century and comprises five bays with round arches, the most easterly decorated with chevron ornament. The piers alternate between round piers and round piers with attached shafts in an interrupted rhythm. The capitals display a mixture of scalloped, waterleaf, and stiff-leaf decoration, and several of the spandrels are decorated. An additional bay with a two-centred arch is splayed to the north to accommodate the chancel, which is wider than the nave. The central 15th-century arcade comprises four bays with obtuse arches of two orders springing from slender piers with engaged shafts and moulded caps on their inner faces. The base of the former tower forms an additional bay to both arcades at the western end, with thicker walls and pointed arches. The southern nave arcade, also 15th-century, comprises five bays formed of quatrefoil piers and obtuse arches. The chancel arch is an obtuse arch offset from the centreline of the north nave, while the south chapel arch is an equilateral arch, the apex of the outer orders of which is covered by the ceiling.

The chancel contains a plain, square-headed 14th-century piscina and three stalls with misericords. There is a 17th-century altar table behind an early 18th-century communion rail, and a reredos designed by William Bassett-Smith in 1885. The reredos incorporates a stained glass mosaic of the Last Supper by Salviati, designed by Clayton and Bell. The chancel is separated from the south chapel by a three-bay arcade on quatrefoil piers.

The church contains a set of carved and painted 17th-century royal arms, hung between the south aisle and south nave. A 14th-century font standing on clustered shafts stands in the nave. The chancel contains a monumental brass of Thomas de Braunstone, Constable of Wisbech Castle, dated 1401, and two 17th-century memorials comprising couples on either side of prayer stands: one to Thomas Parke and Etheldreda Parke (1628) and one to Matthias Taylor and Jane Taylor (1633).

A memorial plaque to those who were killed in action or died in captivity in the Far East during the Second World War is mounted on the east wall of the south aisle. The plaque is a slate tablet set into an ornately carved Sicilian marble frame. The frame is sculpted as the end of a bamboo hut, with a bamboo cane roof and coconut-leaf walls. Within the carved roof is a gilt cross. The tablet is inscribed: 15TH FEBRUARY 1942 - 15TH AUGUST 1945 / TO THE MEMORY OF THE MEN OF THIS AREA / WHO WERE / KILLED IN ACTION OR DIED IN CAPTIVITY / IN THE FAR EAST / THIS TABLET IS DEDICATED BY THEIR COMRADES / OF / THE SINGAPORE CLUB / WISBECH / "TURN YOU TO THE STRONGHOLD, YE PRISONERS OF HOPE" / ZECHARIAH IX.12