Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Wolvercote

This church comprises a medieval west tower from the early 14th century with the remainder of the building rebuilt in 1860 to designs by Charles Buckeridge, and a vestry added in 1835. The structure is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with limestone dressings, with reconstituted stone slates replacing the original Stonesfield stone slates in 1977.

The plan consists of a nave, a slightly lower chancel, a north aisle with a small mortuary chapel off it, a west tower, a north transept, and a south porch.

The squat west tower, thought to date from the 14th century, survives from the medieval building and consists of two stages. The lower and taller stage has a west doorway with a square-headed Perpendicular design and above this a west window of three lights with Perpendicular tracery. The upper stage has two-light belfry windows and the top of the tower has a restored embattled parapet. The body of the church, rebuilt in 1860, has windows of one and two lights based on 13th-century prototypes. The east window is of five lights with geometrical tracery. At the west end of the north aisle there is a pair of trefoil-headed windows with a sexfoiled circle above.

Internally, the walls are plastered and whitened. The arcade to the north aisle has piers of quatrefoil section with moulded arches, capitals and bases. The chancel arch is plainer with a chamfered head, thin imposts and plain reveals with simple chamfering.

The oldest fixture is a Norman font, which is tub-shaped with a circular tapering bowl decorated with incised diaper work. A medieval altar slab was set into the floor at the east end during the 1860 rebuilding. The first window from the east on the south side of the chancel contains early 14th-century geometric grisaille glass painted with oak leaves and acorns, said to have come from Merton College. Additional windows contain 19th-century stained glass. Much of the 19th-century pewing remains, though the chancel stalls have been removed. The most significant monument is that to Sir John Walter (died 1630), to whom the north chapel was conveyed in 1627. Damaged during the Civil War and losing its canopy when the old church was demolished in 1859, the tomb-chest survives with recumbent effigies of Walter and his two wives, with his three sons and three daughters kneeling at their head and feet. Some original paint remains. A marble wall monument commemorates David Walter (died 1679). Other 17th- and 18th-century monuments from the old church were also resited in the new building. West of the tower stands a First World War memorial cross.

A chapel of ease dependent on St Peter-in-the-East is first recorded in 1236, though the Norman font suggests an earlier building on the site. It appears to have had baptismal rights from an early period, though burial rights were not granted until 1414. The medieval church was demolished in 1859 except for the west tower. The nave was rebuilt on its old foundations, the chancel rebuilt by Merton College, and a new south porch was built at the expense of Thomas Combe of the university press. The north chapel was replaced by a wide north aisle with a small mortuary chapel approached by a reused 13th-century stone arch at its northeast end to accommodate the reconstructed Walter monument. The rebuilt church reopened in 1860. The tower was repaired and the belfry adapted for a larger ring of bells in 1967. The roof covering was replaced in 1977. An altar set up at the east end of the north aisle in 1947 was removed in 1974 when a new nave altar was erected.

Charles Buckeridge (1832–73), architect of the rebuilt church, was admitted to a studentship at the Royal Academy school of architecture in 1854. He then worked in the office of George Gilbert Scott, who had the most successful ecclesiastical practice of the day and trained many brilliant pupils. Scott passed a number of jobs to Buckeridge, who established independent practice in Oxford in 1856, likely because in that year the great G E Street moved his office from Oxford to London, thus opening architectural opportunities for others. Buckeridge was Tractarian in his churchmanship and this brought him numerous commissions from like-minded clients; he undertook many church restorations, usually working in the Gothic styles of the 13th and early 14th centuries. Although his work does not rank with that of the greatest names of the Victorian Gothic Revival, it often attracted favourable contemporary notices and contributed significantly to the built environment of Victorian Oxford and its surroundings.