Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

A church dating from the 11th and 12th centuries, with significant 13th-century work and 15th-century additions, restored in 1893 by A. Mardon Mowbray. It is built of limestone rubble with marlstone and limestone ashlar dressings, and has concrete plain tile and lead roofs. The building comprises a nave, central tower, chancel, south porch and transeptal vestry.

The chancel dates to the 13th century and contains a triplet of lancets to the east, each with a roll-moulded arch and detached shafts with linked waterleaf capitals. The side walls have three plain lancets each (the northern one restored) plus a low-side window. A priest's door is located to the south, and a small mutilated piscina survives in the north wall.

The lower stages of the tower are Romanesque. A plain round-headed ground-floor window survives on the north side, with a smaller window above it featuring a chevron-decorated arched head that matches a window in the projecting north-west stair turret. The original top stage has four large openings, three of which retain two shafted inner arches. The central mullion of the northern opening has profuse chevron decoration. The rounded upper stages of the stair turret appear to be an early addition, while the battlemented top stage of the tower is probably 14th-century and contains two-light traceried openings. The vestry to the south of the tower is 19th-century.

The 13th-century nave retains two plain lancets on the north, plus a fine moulded doorway with stiff-leaf capitals on detached shafts. To the south are two similar lancets and a very elaborate doorway with pairs of detached shafts flanking an engaged shaft, with mutilated undercut ornament on the arch. The large western lancet has engaged shafts with fine stiff-leaf capitals. The nave also contains two-light 14th-century low-side windows at its eastern end, and an added 15th-century clerestory. The porch is medieval but has a restored archway.

Internally, the east window features fine shafted rere arches. A trefoil-headed piscina or niche is located halfway down the north wall of the chancel. The eastern arch of the tower, of two chamfered orders, is probably 14th-century, while the plain round-headed western arch remains from the earlier period. Blind Romanesque arches with simple abaci appear in the north and south walls of the tower, echoed by similar chamfered arches over the low-side windows of the nave. The sills of these windows have quatrefoil bowl piscinas. A 13th-century string course runs around the walls of the chancel and nave, linking the sills and rising over the doorways and blind arches in the nave.

A trefoil-headed holy-water stoup is present, and fine hinges now on the inside of the south door are probably 13th-century or earlier. The roofs of the nave and chancel are probably both 19th-century. The plastered walls show traces of medieval colour, though the lined decoration in the nave is probably 19th-century. The low-side windows contain 19th-century stained glass, while the St George in the west window by A.K. Nicholson dates to around 1918.

Fittings include a Jacobean pulpit with arched panels and six baluster legs. Monuments comprise some early 17th-century brass inscriptions and four elaborate late 17th and 18th-century marble wall tablets to members of the Trotman family. Further members of the family are commemorated by contemporary black marble ledgers in the nave floor.

This church is recognised as one of the finest examples of 13th-century work in the county and contains the largest number of low-side windows of any church in England.