Parish Church Of St Peter

Parish Church of St Peter

This is a parish church of outstanding architectural and historical interest, located on an elevated site by Benington Castle, overlooking the village green.

The church was largely built in the late 13th or early 14th century, with significant additions in the 14th and 15th centuries. The original nave and chancel date from the late 13th or early 14th century. A north chapel was added around 1330, a south porch around the same date, and an early 15th-century west tower was constructed before the roof was raised to accommodate a 15th-century clerestory. The building was substantially restored in 1889 by the architect John Oldrid Scott.

The exterior is constructed of flint rubble with stone dressings, with steep old red tile roofs to the porch and chancel. The north chapel has a similar hipped roof at its east end. A parapet conceals the low-pitched nave roof, and the Hertfordshire spike on the tower is topped by an embattled parapet.

The nave is tall, wide, and aisless, lit by windows at two levels. It contains a rood stair at the north-east corner and is covered by a four-bay open timber roof with cambered tie-beams and curved braces rising from wallposts set on corbels. The bosses are carved with heraldic designs and painted. Two early 14th-century two-light windows with tracery occupy the north and south walls, and there is a blocked 14th-century doorway in the north wall. A late 14th-century oak south door with a contemporary pointed arch survives beneath a square head. Large two-light 15th-century clerestory windows, three on each side, light the upper level. The lower windows have moulded rear arches with hoodmoulds and head stops.

Three carved stone brackets and a piscina mark the position of the former altar at the south-east. A mid-14th-century Barnack stone octagonal font with corbelled shafts on alternate faces stands in the church, surmounted by a 15th-century stem with panelled sides and base. Medieval glass fragments survive in the nave windows, and wall-paintings of a masonry pattern with flowers appear at the west end. Simple 15th-century oak benches remain in place. A traceried oak screen dates from 1889 and was moved to the tower arch in 1966. Three inscribed brasses are fixed to the wall at the north-east: a 15th-century scroll, one to William Clarke dated 1591, and another to John Clarke dated 1604.

The chancel is narrower than the nave, and its east wall, roof, and much of the south wall were rebuilt in 1889. The east window is a five-light window of that date, filled with stained glass by Burlison and Grylls dating to around 1896. The south wall retains pre-1300 sedilia with stiff-leaf and crocket capitals and cusped pointed arches, and an early 14th-century piscina with an ogee arch. Two three-light 15th-century windows with flat or low-arched traceried heads occupy the south wall, and a pointed 19th-century traceried window has been inserted at the south-west. A small late 13th-century south doorway with moulded jambs and a straight-sided arch provides access. The chancel arch was widened in the 15th century.

The north-east mortuary chapel, dating from around 1330, is of particular architectural and historical importance. It has a small north doorway, two 14th-century north two-light windows with flowing tracery, and a similar window to the west. A 15th-century window occupies the east wall. The south side features an elaborate two-bay arcade of great quality, the piers quatrefoil in plan with thin shafts in the diagonals and moulded bases and capitals. The arches are deeply moulded, pointed in the western bay but elaborately crocketed and ogee-pointed in the next bay to the east, flanked by panelled finials which serve as a canopy to the traceried tomb chest of Sir John de Benstede and his lady. Their life-size recumbent effigies survive, with small mutilated figures remaining in canopied niches along the south side. An adjacent wall to the east has been pierced to accommodate a similar canopied tomb chest dating from around 1430, containing Sir Edward de Benstede and his lady. The underside of the four-centred arch is panelled with a central angel holding their souls in a napkin. Ogee-headed niches line the tomb chest, and the arch is adorned with carved spandrels. A fragment of a 15th-century brass of a priest is fixed to the pier between the tombs.

The two-stage west tower has angle buttresses and a half-octagonal turret stair on the south face that dies into the upper stage. A tall 15th-century arch gives access to the nave. Two-light bell openings with quatrefoils in the head appear beneath hoodmoulds. A niche in the north-west buttress contains a shield of arms. The south porch has a gabled parapet and diagonal buttresses, with two-light windows to the east and west. An image of St Michael appears in a niche over the entrance. A broken stoup remains by the door.