Church Of St Peter

Church of St. Peter

This parish church was rebuilt between 1870 and 1872 by Thomas Jekyll for Reverend A.C. Haviland, incorporating bells, font, piscina, monuments and a tufa arch from the earlier church. The building is constructed of uncoursed knapped flint with limestone dressings. The tower parapet is chequered in squares of stone and tile-on-edge. The church has steep red tile roofs.

The church is a tall building in the Early Decorated or Geometrical Style. It comprises a chancel with a gabled organ chamber and vestry on the north side and a gabled chapel over the Sowerby vault on the south side, a nave, and a tower positioned at the south-west angle of the nave. The ground floor of the tower forms the entrance porch, entered from the east. The exterior has gable parapets.

The north side features four lancet windows to the nave and a pointed north door near the west end with a hoodmould and carved stops, with sexfoil windows to its right. The door is a plank door with simple iron bands. The lower chancel has a tiny lancet to the right of a pointed moulded narrow north door set in an ashlar projection at the angle with the projecting gabled organ-chamber and vestry. This organ-chamber has a two-light pointed plate-tracery window with alternating tile, flint and stone voussoirs to the outer arch. A circular window with swirling tracery lights the vestry's east side. A similar window with tinted glass appears in the lowest stage of the tower's south face. The west wall of the nave contains several dark red bricks in the walling and a tall five-light pointed window with cusped circles in the head. A diagonal corner buttress buttresses the nave.

The tower has three stages with a projecting turret at the south-east corner that changes from square to octagonal before dying into the middle stage. A lancet window lights the middle stage, and two-light pointed bell-openings on each face have plate tracery, a central shaft and a plain circle in the head. The upper part of the second stage batters inward. A clock face appears on the east side of the tower above the main entrance. The pointed arched doorway has nook-shafts, foliate caps and a steep pointed arch of two recessed orders decorated with Romanesque interlaced circles with nail holes. A circular opening is set in a plain stone tympanum. The door is a single leaf oak plank door with twin escutcheons and heavy bands.

Three lancets light the south wall of the nave, and a faceted projection for the chapel stair rises at the angle with the tall gabled projecting south chapel. The south gable has a tall three-light pointed window with foiled circles in the head, and a deep band of stone panelling with shields and swirling circle motifs alternately placed between paired angle buttresses. The gable parapet coping is carved with stiff-leaf ornament. An external east entrance to the vault below the south chapel is provided by a round-headed Romanesque style doorway with nook-shafts, scallop caps and a plain tympanum, protected by a plank door and a grid of interlaced iron straps. A double-lancet window lights the south side of the chancel, which projects east of the chapel, with paired corner buttresses at the east end. A tall pointed three-light east window has trefoil and sexfoil circles in the head, with alternate tile, flint and stone voussoirs. At the east end, a foundation stone sits low down with a large central sunken circular cross and small crosses at each corner, inscribed '2nd August 1870'.

The interior of the tall porch is constructed of red brick in English bond, with two rows of stone blocks reserved for future inscriptions. It is lit by a round-arched high south window with a deep splay showing the great thickness of the wall. Reset wall monuments occupy the south, west and east sides, with two heraldic black slabs on the floor. The finest monument, on the west wall, commemorates Thomas Docwra and Thomas his son (died 1620) in white and grey veined marble with Corinthian columns and a broken pediment with obelisks, decorated with many heraldic shields in colour. On the south wall a neat sarcophagus in white marble on a grey ground commemorates Reverend William Wade (died 1823). On the north wall a square panel in a moulded alabaster frame marks Daniel Houghton (died 1672). Floor slabs commemorate Sir George Warburton (died 1743) and Sir Benjamin Rawling (died 1775). The south doorway is said to contain 15th-century stones from the old church. It is a pointed doorway in two chamfered orders with a battened door with twin escutcheons and heavy plain iron bands. A framed account to the left of the door records that the last service in the old church was held on Easter Day 1870, the new church opened for services on 29 June 1871, and the tower was completed in 1872.

The tall unaisled nave has a scissor-braced open rafter roof divided into three bays by cusped arch braced moulded tie-beam trusses. The stencil decoration to the walls of the nave and chancel has been painted over, as have the brick walls of the stair passage to the south chapel rising from the south-east corner of the nave. At the west end of the nave stands a 15th-century octagonal clunch font with a thick shaft, a moulded corbel stage to a plain bowl with a sunk cross on its east face, and a moulded projecting rim. The flat octagonal wooden cover has a moulded edge and a fat turned finial with a three-dimensional cross on top. A hatchment of the Sowerby family hangs over the north door. Moulded rear arches light the lancet windows, and segmental rear arches frame the doors. Both doors have cross-bracing on the inside. Radiators are set in segmental-headed low recesses. Pine pews with moulded ends (similar pews in oak fill the chancel). An octagonal oak pulpit on a thick pedestal features cusped heads to linen-fold panels and was made from oak from St. John's College Chapel, Cambridge (the patrons of the living), which was being renovated in 1871. Stained glass windows of saints date to circa 1891, probably by Heaton, Butler & Bayne. The west window was made by them in 1902.

A tall Early English Style chancel arch has three conjoined shafts and luxuriant flower and leaf caps with multiple roll mouldings to the arch. The roof is boarded under a similar scissor-braced rafter roof with polychrome painted decoration, planted ribs and carved bosses at intersections. Applied gilded shields with engraved decoration appear to each side, together with painted shields bearing badges associated with St. Peter. The floor features a square pattern of subtly shaded green glazed tiles. A similar coloured mosaic pavement with sang-de-boeuf accents and chevron borders surrounds the altar.

The organ on the north side is set within the vestry's former round-arched Norman chancel arch of dark red tufa, constructed of two square orders with a hollow chamfer to the simple impost of the inner order. Similar stepped jambs terminate in a high plinth offset in tufa over red brick walling in English bond, raising it above the height of the chancel pews. A small pointed doorway to the vestry on the north wall has a door from the old church. The three-light east window is stained glass dedicated in 1882. A lowered shelf in the sill has a band of gilded quatrefoils below with a white marble cross set in. To the south of the altar, a sedilia niche contains a reset 15th-century piscina to the east with an octagonal bowl, shelf, four-centred head and roll-moulded spandrels.

The south chapel is open to the chancel at a higher level with a single iron balustrade and a simpler boarded ceiling with carved bosses and painted battens. The opening features a wide Early English arch with three shafts to the jambs and luxuriant stiff-leaf caps with birds. The chapel is floored in subtle pink and brown glazed tiles. A three-light south window contains stained glass dating to circa 1890 by Heaton, Butler & Bayne. A wall monument on the west wall in chaste white marble in Grecian style commemorates Mary Sowerby (died 1812).