Church of St. Peter

Church of St. Peter

Church, built 1861–62, designed by Richard Armstrong in 14th-century neo-Gothic style. Constructed of snecked rock-faced Pennant sandstone with Bath stone ashlar dressings, featuring patterned tile roofs with ridge cresting and a shingled spire. The building comprises a nave, north aisle, chancel, north chapel, south porch, and a west tower with spire. It has a plinth, diagonal buttresses, and parapeted gable ends.

The tower rises in three stages. A first-floor string course runs around it. The broach spire carries two tiers of two-light lucarnes with colonnettes and a cross at its apex. The bell chamber displays two-light cusped and louvred openings on all faces. A clock occupies the second stage on the west face, supported by colonnettes beneath a trefoiled gabled wooden canopy, with a small rectangular window to the north. A cusped lancet with hoodmould and carved stops sits in the first stage to the west. At the south-east corner, a newel turret rises to the second stage, topped with a lean-to stone roof and containing small rectangular windows and a caernarvon arched boarded doorway facing west. The clock is inscribed "IN MEMORY OF HCS".

The nave comprises three bays. A cusped lancet with hoodmould and carved stops stands to the left, while a three-light window with cusped tracery, hoodmould, and carved stops occupies the right. A central south doorway features a chamfered arch and boarded door. The gabled south porch has shafts, foliated capitals, a chamfered arch with hoodmould and carved stops, and small rectangular windows on its east and west sides.

The chancel's south side has two bays: a two-light window with cusped tracery and hoodmould with carved stops to the left, and a cusped lancet with hoodmould and carved stops to the right. Its east end displays a three-light window with cusped geometrical tracery, hoodmould, and carved stops.

The north chapel features an octagonal stack to the west with an arcaded top. Its east end has a square-headed window with two cusped ogee lights and hoodmould with carved stops, plus a small rectangular opening in the gable above. The north side contains a square-headed window with two cusped ogee lights and hoodmould with carved stops to the left, and two two-light windows with cusped lights and a cusped lancet to the right. The west end shows a large triangular window with curved sides, tracery of three foiled circles, and hoodmould with carved stops.

Internally, the north aisle features a three-bay arcade with circular piers, foliated capitals, and chamfered arches. The nave has a single framed roof. The moulded chancel arch displays shafts, foliated capitals, and hoodmould with carved stops. A chamfered tower arch is topped with a window of three circular lights; beneath the tower sits a quadripartite rib-vaulted vestry. The chancel has a waggon roof and a chamfered organ arch to the north with continuous dripmould.

Fittings include a 19th-century octagonal wooden pulpit on a stone base with linenfold panelling and ballflower ornament; a 19th-century eagle lectern; a likely 12th-century tub font; a 19th-century octagonal stone font with shafted base and trefoiled panels on alternate faces; two hatchments on the north wall of the nave; two bequest boards on the west wall; and a 19th-century nine-bay vestry screen. Stained glass by Clutterbuck (1862) and Lavers and Barraud is present.

Monuments include Richard Perkins of 1560, now partly destroyed, originally consisting of two fluted Corinthian columns supporting a carved frieze and dentil cornice (the remainder is now in the neighbouring Old Rectory garden). A monument to Francis Perkyns of 1615–16 and his wife Anna of 1635 comprises two recumbent stone effigies on a tomb chest with kneeling figures, now set within a 19th-century arched recess. A brass in the vestry commemorates William Smith of 1627 and his wife Costantia of 1610.