Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

This is a church with a 13th-century core, much rebuilt in the 15th and early 16th centuries. The tower was under construction around 1520–29. A north aisle was added in 1855, and an organ chamber was created in 1879 by lengthening the aisle eastward.

The church is built of sandstone rubble masonry with tiled roofs. The tower masonry is galletted. The building comprises a nave, chancel, west tower, north and south aisles, a northeast organ chamber, a southeast chapel, a southeast vestry roofed at right angles to the chapel, and a southwest porch.

The three-stage embattled Kentish tower has diagonal buttresses with set-offs and an octagonal southeast stair turret rising above the tower roof. The west doorway and window have 20th-century renewed masonry. The south aisle has renewed 20th-century square-headed Perpendicular-style windows with cusped heads and one blocked lancet. The Perpendicular porch has a stoup, diagonal buttresses, and a doorway in a square-headed frame with carved spandrels. The east window is a three-light window with a shallow segmental arch and cusped lights; the east window of the southeast chapel has uncusped lights. The north aisle, added in 1855, is in the Decorated style with buttresses and three-light windows.

The interior contains a three-bay south aisle with round and octagonal piers having deep mouldings. The early 16th-century tower arch has engaged shafts and is filled with a glazed screen. The nave has a medieval crown-post roof on moulded ties on arched braces with carved posts on moulded stone corbels. The crown-posts have moulded bases and capitals with four-way bracing. The chancel arch is marked by timber wall posts and pierced traceried spandrels to the tie beam braces and a carved boss on the soffit. The chancel has a common rafter roof with moulded wallplate, probably of late Perpendicular date. The medieval Perpendicular south aisle roof has moulded tie beams with arched braces and open spandrels. The medieval Perpendicular porch roof has curved braces and a brattished wallplate. The 1855 north aisle has a three-bay arcade. A rood stair remains in the southwest chancel pier.

The plain octagonal late Perpendicular stone font has a 17th-century ogival openwork cover. A timber drum pulpit, dating to around 1630, has upper panels with blind perspective arches, lower panels, and a cornice with strapwork decoration. Late 19th and early 20th-century benches and choir-stalls have poppyheads. The screens to the organ chamber and southeast chapel are timber traceried and of early 20th-century date; the southeast chapel screen is dated 1932. A chancel screen of 1931 by C R Ashbee, noted in Pevsner, was removed in 1990. The east windows of the chancel and chancel chapel are signed by F W Oliphant, dated 1856 and 1858. A chandelier is dated 1725.

The church contains numerous monuments of high quality. These include a brass of around the late 14th century of very high quality and late 16th-century brasses. Many wall monuments are present, including a cartouche dated 1680 to John Chichester described as being of the highest sculptural quality, and five Grecian tablets to the Pratt family of 1832 by Chantrey. An unusual and original bronze sleeping child on a pedestal to Elizabeth Mills dates to around 1908.

The church represents a structure with a 13th-century core but extensive Perpendicular rebuilding, including a good example of a Kentish tower and medieval roofs to the nave, south aisle, porch, and probably the chancel. The fittings include a Perpendicular font with a 17th-century cover, a good 17th-century pulpit, and numerous monuments of considerable quality.