Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

This is a parish church with early 14th-century origins. The north-west tower and chancel date from the early 14th century, with the nave remodelled in the 15th century when the chancel was also altered. The building was restored in 1882 by Sir George Gilbert Scott.

The church is constructed of flint with ashlar dressings, except for the rendered chancel. The nave has a lead roof and the chancel is covered with plain tiles.

The three-stage unbuttressed tower features a 19th-century west window of two lights with Y tracery. Above this is a pointed hollow-chamfered ringing chamber light, with two-light belfry windows below a crenellated parapet. A weathervane in the form of a cockerel and pennant crowns the tower.

The west elevation of the nave displays a four-light cusped intersecting window of early 14th-century date, with a three-light Perpendicular window beneath a four-centred arch above it. Diagonal buttresses with stepped flanking elements support the nave corners. The south porch is gabled with a double-chamfered opening below a hood mould terminating in label stops. Above the arch are stepped three-bay ogee statuary niches with finials, flanked by two-light cusped side lights. The inner south door has undercut and wave-moulded jambs and arch below a hood mould with King and Queen head stops.

The nave is lit by three windows on both north and south sides, all restored, with ogeed lights and supermullions. The chancel has diagonal eastern buttresses and is lit from the south through two three-light Perpendicular windows. Between these windows stands a 19th-century gabled flint porch covering the priests' door. A 19th-century dentil eaves cornice has been added. A three-light reticulated east window illuminates the east end. The north wall of the chancel is lit by two two-light 14th-century Decorated mouchette windows to the east of a 19th-century gabled vestry.

The interior contains a double-chamfered chancel arch. The nave roof is a double hammerbeam structure documented to 1504, comprising twelve trusses. The lower hammerbeams are carried on arched braces dropping to wall posts with pierced tracery spandrels. Painted carved prophets stand against the wall posts below cusped and sub-cusped pinnacled canopies; most figures are decapitated. At the base of the wall posts is a flight of angels with spread wings, added in 1882, though all other roof details are original to 1504.

The moulded hammerbeams terminate in carved and painted angels bearing musical instruments or scrolls. The hammerposts are moulded with pierced tracery spandrels to the principal rafters. Arched braces rise to a second tier of hammerbeams with flights of painted angels bearing scrolls and shields. The second tier of hammerposts displays pierced tracery spandrels similar to those below. Arched braces extend upward to moulded collars with king posts from the centre of each collar to the ridge piece. Painted angels stand against the king posts to east and west. Two tiers of moulded butt purlins run the length of the roof. The wall plate is linked to wall posts by carved arched braces. Boarded ashlaring in two tiers—the lower tier coved—contains high-relief carvings of angels flanked by decorative shields. The roof contains 160 carved angels in total.

A 13th-century Purbeck marble octagonal font has a bowl supported on a central column and eight subsidiary orbital columns. Each face of the bowl is incised with two pointed arches. The timber font cover, dated 1704, is octagonal with an ogee canopy standing on eight turned balusters. Beneath the canopy is a frieze bearing a Greek palindrome in eight individual scrolls reading: "Wash thou, not only my face, but my transgression."

An early 16th-century chancel screen comprises four bays on either side of a cusped opening, with traceried dado and ogee-traceried lights, heavily restored. A founder's tomb recess with tomb slab stands at the south-east nave corner below a stilted undercut arch, with a piscina to its left. A late 16th-century combined reading desk and chair in the chancel features arcaded panels and poppyhead bench ends. Flat sedilia and an angle piscina stand upon a fluted column below an ogee head with two encircled quatrefoils. The west end of the nave contains nine 13th-century tomb slabs.