Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul, Heydon

This parish church dates mainly from the 14th and 15th centuries, with 19th-century additions. It is constructed in flint with limestone dressings and features lead roofs, except for the north porch which is pantiled.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, south aisle, south porch, north aisle, north porch, and a mortuary chapel on the north side of the chancel.

The west tower is a 15th-century square structure built in galleted flint with diagonal staged buttresses and string courses at the offsets. A polygonal stair turret with quatrefoil lights projects from the south side. The west doorway has traceried spandrels with shields and a two-leaf traceried door. Above this is a square panel with shields. The four-light west window features a quatrefoil in the head. Square traceried sound openings with shields and three-light bell openings with cusped intersecting tracery occupy the tower face. An embattled parapet sits on a coved string course with octagonal angle piers topped by crocketted pinnacles.

The aisles have 14th-century three-light west windows. The nave clerestorey contains four two-light 15th-century windows with quatrefoils in square surrounds between openings; the easternmost quatrefoil is smaller and glazed. The south aisle has three-light 15th-century windows with staged buttresses dividing the bays.

The two-storey south porch dates to the 15th century and features two-light square-headed east and west windows, both unglazed. Its ceiling is tierceron-vaulted on renewed corner shafts with bosses at intersections. A parapet gable with diagonal buttresses and a two-light upper window crowns the structure.

The south wall of the chancel contains two three-light 15th-century windows with segmental brick arches. A priest's door lies to the west of the central buttress. Both the nave and chancel have parapeted gables with cross-finials and moulded kneelers. The restored five-light east window displays Perpendicular tracery, and below its cill are three pedimented panels with memorial tablets to the Bulwer family.

The mortuary chapel on the north side of the chancel was added in 1864. The north porch is 14th-century with single-light east and west windows featuring cusped heads and square drip moulds. Its parapet gable includes considerable brickwork at the apex, and a roll-moulded arch with engaged shafts frames the entrance, though the doorway is now blocked in brick.

The interior contains 15th-century roofs to the nave and chancel with roll-moulded principals and purlins, bosses at intersections, and arch-braced ridge pendants with star-bosses. Alternate arch braces spring from rafters onto wallposts and head corbels, with moulded and decorated cornicing. The aisle roofs are arch-braced with traceried spandrels.

The 14th-century north and south arcades comprise four bays with quatrefoil piers featuring keeled fillets and double-chamfered arches with polygonal capitals.

A notable screen, donated in 1480 by John Dynne, retains much original colour, decoration, and lettering. It features tall one-light divisions with cusped arches and flower-finials, and has a restored cornice.

The 15th-century pulpit stands on a wineglass stem set on a section of stone octagonal shaft with fleuron decoration. Its hexagonal body is panelled with tracery. An octagonal tester tops the pulpit, and a 17th-century backboard behind it carries relief carving of the Last Supper. A 17th-century family box-pew occupies the east end of the nave against the screen.

The chancel contains a blocked doorway in the north wall with a much-repaired recess to its east. A piscina with cusped head occupies the south-east corner, and dropped-cill sedilia are present. The communion rail features twisted balusters. Seventeenth and 18th-century memorial slabs line the chancel floor, including a brass inscription to Dorothy, daughter of John and Frances Castell (died 1618).

The east end of the north aisle holds a massive memorial slab to Erasmus Earle, 1690, surrounded by iron railings. A cartouche on the north wall above records Earle's death date as 1667. A fine wall monument to John Steward Bachelour (died 1708) stands on the north side of the tower arch.

The south-east chapel possesses a piscina with cusped head and petalled bowl, and an early 17th-century panelled reredos that has been re-used. Fourteenth-century wall paintings survive on the north aisle wall and in the south-east chapel.

The font is 13th-century, a large round tub resting on an octagonal base.