Church of St Peter is a Grade II* listed building in the South Oxfordshire local planning authority area, England. First listed on 14 June 1963. A Medieval Church.
Church of St Peter
- WRENN ID
- pitched-string-summer
- Grade
- II*
- Local Planning Authority
- South Oxfordshire
- Constituency
- Didcot and Wantage MP: Olly Glover (LD)
- Country
- England
- Date first listed
- 14 June 1963
- Type
- Church
- Period
- Medieval
- Address
- Church of St Peter, Main Street, Little Wittenham
- OS grid reference
- SU 566 934
- Coordinates
- 51.63701, -1.18298
- Source
- Historic England listing
Description
The Church of St Peter is a Grade II* listed building located in Little Wittenham, dating back to the 14th century for its tower, while the rest of the church was rebuilt by Charles Buckeridge around 1863. It is constructed from uncoursed squared limestone with stone dressings and features an old plain-tile roof, along with a stone end stack to the vestry. The church comprises a three-bay nave, chancel, vestry, and west tower, designed in an Early English style.
The church has a gabled stone porch at the center of the nave, which includes a two-centred archway supported by columns with foliate caps. The nave features plate tracery windows, while the chancel has cusped plate tracery windows. The tower is positioned to the left and includes an octagonal stair turret, a two-light window with reticulated tracery on the left return, and cross-slits on the rear and left return. The top stage of the tower has two-light louvred openings of reticulated tracery and is topped with a battlemented parapet.
Inside, there is a 19th-century stained glass window by Clayton and Bell, as well as sedilia and a piscina to the right of a marble reredos. To the left, there is a recessed altar tomb from around 1483 for Geoffrey Kidwelly, featuring shields on the altar base and a brass on top, with quatrefoil carving in the recess and a cusped Tudor arch supported by buttress-shafts. The tower houses a notable collection of monuments and brasses, including an alabaster monument to Sir William Dunch and his family, which features two effigies—one recumbent and the other resting on his side with his head on his arm—flanked by obelisks. There are also significant brasses commemorating the Dunch and Winchcombe families.
The church contains 19th-century fittings, including pews and choir stalls with wrought-iron candelabra, a stone pulpit, and a font with a pinnacled wooden cover. Both the nave and chancel have scissor-braced roofs.
Local climate
Church of St Peter sits in a drier-than-average part of the UK, with an average of 720 mm of rain a year. This makes it drier than 81% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 72% of listed buildings.
It experiences an average of 36 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 62% of listed buildings. Of these, 15 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.
Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
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- No EPC on record for this property
- No sale records on file
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- Detailed attributes — period, style, materials, features
- Flood risk assessment
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- Weather exposure and heating demand — rain and frost month by month and year by year, wind direction, solar and humidity
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