Church Of St Peter Church Of England

TL 3629 BUNTINGFORD HIGH STREET (west side)

7/38 Church of St Peter (C of E) 22.2.67

GV I

Chapel of Ease, now a church. Circa 1615 (inscription stone with 'Domus Orationis 1615' on E gable) for vicar Dr Alexander Strange. Restored 1899-1900 by W A Pite renewing windows restoring W gallery and adding N porch, and vestry/heating chamber in SW angle. Red brick in English-bond with steep tiled roofs. An unusual Jacobean town preaching house in Greek cross form orientated with chancel and semi-circular apse at S and entrance under clock and bell at N. Gothic Survival style with tall moulded brick windows with blunt pointed heads in similar moulded arches recesses. 2 small pointed lights in upper W gable, gable parapets with moulded copings, finialled corbelled kneelers and squared apex finials, offset plinth, step-corbelled eaves, broad pilaster buttresses to apse alternating with pointed windows (heightened and refaced in 1900). Arched bellcote on N gable and later porch. Interior has flattened barrel-vaulted roof E-W, against which short similar vaulted roofs abutt to N and S. Timber ceiling renewed but original heavy cambered hollow- chamfered tie-beams remain with hollow-chamfered braces rising from wallposts on corbels, 2 to each arm of the church. Pointed arch of 2 chamfered orders into apse. Billet moulded cresting at wallplate all round church. Heavy ovolo-moulded beam at front of galley across W arm of church carried on 4 wooden Ionic columns (volutes orientated at right angles to beam), with tall pedestals one with strapwork carving on E face, another plain with housing for a bench end. Pentagonal font with moulded base, panelled stem and bowl decorated with arabesque ornament and bosses. Framed engraved brass plate with view of interior of chapel in 1622 during service inscribed to Alexander Strange who 'fecit hanc Capellam'. Large iron clock movement on wooden frame in E arm. (Layston Parish Mag XXX November 1900: RCHM (1911) 138-9: VCH (1914) 87: Kelly (1914) 74: Pevsner (1977) 117).

Listing NGR: TL3630729324