Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a parish church dating back to the 12th century, with significant additions and alterations from the 13th and 14th centuries. It was extensively restored and enlarged in 1843. The church is constructed of random flint, with freestone quoins and dressings, and features plain-tiled roofs, including small pitched dormers and Victorian ornamental ridge tiles. A simple Norman south doorway and a 12th-century north doorway with keeled roll-moulding and shafts with volute capitals are present, the latter incorporated into a north aisle built in a Victorian Romanesque style. A small, plain Norman window has been reused at the east end of the north aisle. The chancel dates from the early 13th century, displaying 2-light ogee-headed windows to the north and south, and a 3-light east window with intersecting tracery and mouchettes, with angle buttresses at the east end. The 14th-century tower is unbuttressed and stands in three stages, with freestone quoins, dressings, and a crenellated parapet with damaged pinnacles. It features a 2-light window with flowing tracery to the lowest stage of the west face, a single cinquefoil-headed window in the second stage, and 2-light cusped Y-tracery windows on each face of the top stage. A canted stair-turret with a conical roof is located on the south side. Internally, most of the fittings and the Romanesque north arcade date from the 1843 restoration. A restored screen partitions the space. The chancel contains a simple trefoil-headed piscina, a stone reredos with cinquefoil panels, and a high canopied niche on each side of the east window. The nave and chancel have steeply-pitched roofs with arch-braced construction, showcasing mouldings to purlins and braces, 4 bays to the nave, and 2 bays with lower collars to the chancel. Shields are positioned at the intersections, and curious lozenge-shaped carved bosses were added later. A notable feature is the collection of approximately 75 small roundels of engraved 16th/17th century Flemish glass, set against brightly-coloured 19th-century stained glass, acquired in the early 19th century by Orbell Ray Oakes from monasteries in Brussels and brought to Nowton Court. Numerous memorial tablets adorn the walls, primarily commemorating the Oakes family; a marble monument by John Bacon Jr. depicts Elizabeth Frances Oakes, who died in 1811, and shows a draped female figure kneeling beside a sarcophagus.