Parish Church Of St Peter

St Peter's Church is a large parish church of Anglo-Saxon origins, possibly dating to the 8th century, with the early Saxon work evident in the base of the west tower and nave representing the oldest Saxon fabric in Hampshire. The church has undergone continuous development through the medieval period and later restoration, with a 12th-century west door, 13th-century chancel remodelling and heightening of the west tower, a 14th-century south chapel, probable 15th-century addition of the spire and further chancel remodelling, and a 14th-century north aisle. A Victorian restoration of 1866-7 included replacement of the earlier south aisle, with a south vestry added in 1905 and chapter rooms and vestry constructed within the south aisle in 1989.

The church exhibits multi-period construction including stone, coursed rubble with ashlar dressings, some tile banding, and flintwork. Roofs are both tiled and slated. The plan comprises a west tower with spire, nave, east chancel, north and south aisles (with parish offices and vestries over two storeys at the west end of the south aisle), and a south chapel.

Exterior

The west elevation features a coursed rubble west tower, early Anglo-Saxon to its lower levels, with a round-arched Saxon west door containing iron gates from Funtley Ironworks of 17th-century date. Above the door is tile banding of re-used Roman tiles that returns to the south and north. Some flintwork is also present. A small round-headed belfry window pierces the tower, which is topped by a polygonal splayed-foot spire. A clock faces west towards Church Street. The steep profile of the Saxon roof-line is visible either side of the tower. External stairs to the north of the tower provide access to its first floor. The lean-to rubble north aisle has a Perpendicular 15th-century west window. To the south stands the coursed stone Neo-Decorated south aisle of 1866-7 with pitched roof, alongside an Edwardian stone vestry with pitched tiled roof and modern west door.

The south elevation presents the Edwardian former vestry of two storeys with two-light pointed-arched windows to both storeys and full dormers to the upper floors. The coursed stone, partly snecked, south aisle has a pair of windows in Neo-Decorated style. The rubble and flint 14th-century south chapel has a pitched tiled roof parallel with the nave, paired slender ogee-headed lights, and a simple south door. Stepped buttresses support the south wall.

The east elevation shows a large three-light east window to the 14th-century south chapel. A larger late 19th-century five-light window lights the chancel within an earlier 15th-century Perpendicular surround, with stepped angle-buttresses. A large segmental-headed five-light Perpendicular window serves the north aisle.

The north elevation has three 15th-century Perpendicular north windows to the chancel and four large Perpendicular three-light windows to the north aisle.

Interior

The interior contains a high-quality 12th-century Norman west nave doorway of three orders with shafted jambs and capitals crisply carved with foliate and zoomorphic forms, and chevron moulding to the arch. The nave retains its Saxon proportions but little of its fabric other than its west end, given the addition of north and south aisles. A Saxon window arch sits high in the west tower.

The north aisle arcade dates to the 15th century with slender shafts made up of four columns. The south aisle arcade is three-bay and 19th-century Neo-Decorated. The modern two-storey vestry and offices at the west end of the south aisle are not of special interest.

The original Saxon chancel was replaced and remodelled, although some early fabric survives either side of the simple chancel arch. The present chancel is 13th-century, though the arch reuses 12th-century responds. A further arcade between the chancel and south chapel is early 14th-century with grotesque winged figures and foliage to the capitals. The adjoining south door, known as the Priest's Door, dates to the 13th century. Two sedilia with piscinas are present: one of the 13th century in the chancel south wall, heavily restored; the other 14th-century with ogee-heads in the south chapel south wall. The chancel was remodelled in the 15th-century Perpendicular style, though representing a later phase of work than the north aisle Perpendicular. Encaustic floor tiles date to the Victorian restoration of 1866-7.

Principal Fixtures

The south chapel contains the Wriothesley Monument, an impressive memorial in marble and alabaster to the first Earl and Countess of Southampton and also the second Earl, specified in the will of the latter. By the Flemish refugee Gerard Johnson, the contract of 1594 survives. This rectangular two-tiered monument has obelisks at the corners. An arcade supports the effigy of Jane Countess of Southampton (died 1551); below are her husband the first Earl (died 1551) and the second Earl, their son, shown in plate armour. Other smaller kneeling family members and heraldic beasts adorn the monument. Also present is the mortuary helmet of the second Earl. The south wall bears a monument to Lady Mary Wriothesley who died 1615 aged 4, unusually depicted with child-like features. The north wall has a handsome marble memorial to members of the Hornby Family with an accomplished figure of a dead youth by Sir Francis Chantrey (signed), 1836.

Pews, chancel stalls, and encaustic floor tiles all date to the 1866-7 restoration. Stained glass is also largely Victorian, by Clayton and Bell other than the three chancel north windows which are by Weiles. The west window of the north aisle is post-1956, by Francis Skeat, and shows a ploughman and horse. The chancel arch screen dates to 1916 by Norman Atkins. A handsome carved octagonal stone font by Charles Upton, a pupil of Eric Gill, 1951, is carved alternately with figurative and symbolic scenes as a memorial to the troops who passed through Titchfield in 1944 to take part in the D-Day invasion of Normandy. A mural above the west door depicting the Miraculous Draught of Fishes, originally 1888, was reworked in 1951-2 by students of Portsmouth School of Art in a Folk Art style. A triptych of the Crucifixion above the chancel arch by C E Kempe dates to 1889.

History

St Peter's Church is Anglo-Saxon in origin and the surviving Saxon fabric is the oldest Saxon work in Hampshire. There is no surviving reference to a church here before 982 when a charter of King Ethelred refers to the members of a religious establishment in Titchfield. It is believed to have functioned as a minster church and to have been built soon after Hampshire was converted to Christianity in the late 7th century. The base of the tower and elements of the nave at either end are of Saxon date. It is difficult to date precisely but the Roman tile banding and megalithic quoins would suggest early rather than late Saxon, and the existence of a west porch leading to an aisle-less nave can also be seen at the late 7th-century Monkwearmouth Church in County Durham. The steep pitch of the Saxon roof-line is still discernible immediately adjoining the tower to its north and south.

The west nave door is 12th-century when the south aisle was also added. This was replaced by the present south aisle in 1867 to the designs of the Reverend Turner. The chancel was rebuilt in the 13th century when the Saxon porch was also heightened to a tower, although the spire is later, probably 15th-century. In 1231 Peter des Roches, Bishop of Winchester, gifted St Peter's Church to his newly founded St Mary's Abbey to the north of the town. The canons were allowed, from 1283, to appoint one of themselves as vicar of St Peter's and this relationship continued until the Dissolution of the Monasteries in 1537. At this time Henry VIII gave the abbey to Thomas Wriothesley who was to become Earl of Southampton. The south chapel is a 14th-century addition but is known as the Southampton Chapel following the Dissolution as it became the mausoleum of the Earls of Southampton.

In the late 18th to early 19th century more room for an expanding congregation was created by the addition of galleries to the south aisle, also a choir gallery at the west end of the nave, all of which were removed in the Victorian restoration of 1866-7. In the mid-19th to early 20th century the very large parish of Titchfield was subdivided into Sarisbury with Swanwick, Crofton, Hook with Warsash, Lock's Heath and Lee-on-the-Solent and Titchfield, although the mother parish remains the largest of the group.

A south vestry replaced a late Victorian one in 1905 and the south aisle was part-converted into Chapter Rooms with an added upper floor housing vestries in 1989.