Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a largely medieval parish church, now redundant, located in North Barningham. Constructed primarily of flint and conglomerate with brick dressings, it features tile and slate roofs. The church comprises a west tower, nave, north aisle, north porch, and chancel.

The two-stage embattled tower has diagonal buttresses to its west face and a three-light west window with a transom and cusped panel tracery under a hood mould. A slit window with a cusped head is positioned to the west, and bell openings have quatrefoils in their heads, with obelisk finials to the battlements.

The buttressed nave exhibits brick-dressed buttresses to the south, set on larger flint rubble bases, with conglomerate quoins. Raised eaves are present. The south doorway has a continuous chamfer and hood mould, followed by a largely post-medieval three-light window with intersecting tracery and a hood mould. Further south is a two-light square-headed window with panel tracery and a hood mould. A three-bay aisle extends to the north, with brick buttresses and Y-tracery windows. The eastern window to the aisle is of two lights, square-headed with panel tracery and partly restored, also under a hood mould.

The unbuttressed chancel is two bays wide. To the south are two square-headed two-light windows, one with panel tracery and the other with ogee-headed lights, both under hood moulds. The north side has no visible openings, although a blocked light is likely. The roof has been raised. The east window is of three cusped lights, with mullions rising to the head of the arch and a hood mould.

The north porch, dating to the first nave bay, has a restored archway with a continuous chamfer and hood mould, incorporating a niche above. The nave doorway features a continuous roll moulding and a hood mould with foliated terminals.

Inside, the nave arcade displays octagonal shafts with abaci and bases, and two chamfered orders to the arches. A niche with a hood mould is located beside the south door. The nave and north aisle were re-roofed in 1893. A curious rere-arch is visible to the south nave window. The tower arch has polygonal shafts, moulded to the nave, with polygonal bases and capitals. A damaged Decorated piscina and drop-sill sedilia are present, along with some re-used poppy-head bench ends. An inlaid “rose window” design is visible in the nave floor, created with stone and brick.

Within the north aisle floor is a brass memorial to Henry Pagrave, who died in 1516, and his wife. The chancel houses a marble wall monument to Margaret Pope, who died in 1621, depicting angels holding back a curtain of a baldachino beneath which she kneels, with a curving superstructure and a segmental pediment topped by an urn. A tomb chest monument commemorates John Palgrave, who died in 1611, featuring shields, three small allegorical figures, strapwork shoulders to the architrave, and a plain cornice. A further marble monument is dedicated to Sir Austin Palgrave, who died in 1639, and his wife, with a base inscription, grey marble Tuscan columns supporting an almost semicircular broken pediment, a foliated scrolled architrave, two oval niches with lion's-head terminals containing busts, an achievement above, and a 17th-century altar rail.