Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

Church dating from the 12th century with 13th-century alterations and later additions. The building is constructed of coursed rubble limestone with plain tile roofs and follows a cruciform plan with a south porch and north chapel.

The west tower rises in three stages with 12th-century pilaster buttresses to the lower two stages and trefoil-headed single lights to the middle stage. A later door to the stairs is positioned in the south-west corner. The 13th-century bell-chamber contains tall two-light windows with plate tracery, blocked below the transoms. A fine octagonal ashlar spire rises above, with gabled lucarnes at its base and small corner buttresses composed of crocketed finials and horizontal flying struts.

The short nave contains one bay of large three-light Perpendicular windows, with the north window being almost full-height and featuring carved angel stops to the hoodmould. The 12th-century south doorway, much restored, has three nook-shafts with carved capitals to each jamb and a semi-circular arch decorated with dogtooth and chevron ornament and tabbed roll-moulding. The gabled south porch displays a double-chamfered arch on imposts, a trefoil-headed single light above, and stone side benches. The north door of the nave is also 12th-century but smaller, with a single roll-moulding.

The south transept contains a 13th-century south window with three trefoil-headed lights and two early 19th-century memorial tablets on the east wall. The north transept is of ashlar construction with a moulded plinth and parapet, buttresses, and slit windows to a north-east stair turret with a lead roof. It features Perpendicular three-light windows. The north chapel also has a moulded parapet and lead roof, with a 13th-century window of three trefoil-headed lights in the east wall and a late 15th-century three-light window in the north wall.

The chancel has small buttresses and a moulded sill string. The south wall contains a lowside window and two two-light traceried windows, one 13th-century and the other 14th-century. The three-light east window is 19th-century.

The interior is much restored and stripped of plaster. A fine 12th-century tower arch features two roll-mouldings on moulded impost bands, with jambs having shafts with scalloped capitals and zig-zag ornament. The arches between the nave and transepts and chancel are 13th-century, with the north transept arch rising on large semi-circular piers with highly restored stiff-leaf capitals; the other arches rest on shafts with moulded capitals. The 19th-century nave roof is supported on restored stone corbels with carved heads.

The south transept contains a good 13th-century piscina with trefoil head, moulded arch on shafts, and carved foliage gable, together with an image stand with corbel and arched head in the south-east corner. The north transept has an internal stair turret to a former upper chamber, a recess with four-centred arch in the north wall, and original moulded corbels supporting the 19th-century roof. A double hollow-chamfered arch leads to the north chapel, with the south jamb on the chapel side containing a tall narrow recess with rebated arch, possibly once a cupboard for banner staves. The chapel has a good 15th to 16th-century roof of moulded timbers on variously carved stone corbels. A 13th-century arch separates the chapel from the chancel.

The chancel features cusped rere-arches to the east window and the centre window of the south wall. The south wall also contains an aumbry, an arched piscina with a 19th-century basin on a shaft, and window-seat sedilia. The north wall has three shallow 15th to 16th-century niches with four-centred heads and a low rectangular recess with a piscina.

The church contains a 12th-century stone font with quatrefoil basin on a shafted stand; the shafts have moulded bases and strings with scalloped capitals, and the basin is decorated with a nailhead frieze and a long carved head between lobes on the east side. A carved and painted wooden panel in the north transept displays the arms of James I and the date 1622, reset in a pedimented surround dated 1829. Other fittings and glass are 19th-century.

The monuments include a fine stone wall tablet to John Huband of 1668 in the north chapel, set in a richly moulded surround with festooned side scrolls and swan-neck pediment. The north transept contains a marble wall tablet to Sophia Colston of 1802 with obelisk, urn and putti, signed by Williams of New Road, London. The south transept houses two large marble wall tablets: one to Edward Colston of 1825 with draped sarcophagus, signed by C. Lewis of Cheltenham, and the other to Thomas Edwards of 1790, signed by R. Cooke of London.

The building underwent much restoration in 1873, as dated on rainwater heads, by E.G. Bruton.