Church Of St Peter And St Paul

The Church of St Peter and St Paul is a parish church, largely dating to the 15th century. It is constructed of flint with limestone dressings, with lead-covered main roofs and a plaintiled porch. The church consists of a west tower, nave, south porch, and chancel.

The square west tower is set slightly south of the main church axis and features diagonal, staged buttresses to the bell stage. It has a 2-light window facing west. The bell stage has 2-light traceried openings, with a small window with a cusped head below the south bell opening. The south porch has a hollow-chamfered arch supported on polygonal corbels with defaced headstops. A continuous quadrant moulding defines the outer arch and jambs. Large arched openings in the north and south nave walls mark the former locations of chapels; these openings are now infilled with Y-tracery. A 2-light square-headed window at the south-east corner of the nave has tracery which has been filled with rendered brick. The chancel has 2-light square-headed cross-windows on the north and south sides, featuring cusped heads to the lights and hollow-chamfered mullions and transoms. A north-east window has been blocked with rendered brickwork. A priest’s door on the south side has a cusped and sub-cusped arch, a square dripmould, and decorative spandrels featuring flowers and foliage. Diagonal buttresses with flushwork panels featuring cusped and crocketed heads flank the east gable. The east window is a 3-light window of 15th-century design. A crudely-built projection at the north-east corner of the nave likely accommodated a rood stair. A north-east nave window has been blocked with brick, partly rendered. Staged buttresses with flushwork panels flank the north chapel opening, and a north doorway is blocked in flint. A square-headed 2-light west window on the north side of the nave has four quatrefoils above ogee-headed lights.

Inside, the nave roof has arch-braced principals with wallposts to alternating trusses. There are roll-moulded purlins and a ridge with ridge-pendants bearing carved bosses, together with a moulded cornice. The chancel has a waggon-boarded ceiling. A piscina is set within the south wall of the chancel, and it has a cinquefoil head, carved spandrels and a petalled bowl. 18th-century memorial slabs are within the nave and chancel floors, alongside two memorial brasses, one commemorating Edmund and Katherine Bell, who died in 1636. Wall monuments in the north-east corner of the nave commemorate Thomas Bell (died 1755), Coulson Bell (died 1800), an oval tablet for Richard Ladell (died 1802) and others, and are positioned above the blocked north doorway. A fragment of wall painting depicting a fish is found adjacent to the jamb of the north doorway. A hexagonal-panelled pulpit stands on a stem and is of 17th-century design. A plain octagonal font bowl sits on a later base.