Church Of St Peter And St Paul

The Church of St Peter and St Paul is a 19th-century church, built in 1842 by McIntosh Brookes and later altered in 1868 by Sir A W Blomfield, with a further re-arrangement of the north transept by Sir Edward Maufe after the Second World War. It was built in a Romanesque style, intended as a copy of the church at Thaon in Normandy. The church is constructed of red brick with some stone corbels to the tower eaves, and has blue slate roofs with stone slabs to the tower. It follows a cruciform plan with an apsidal east end, and a square tower to the north-west.

The tower has three stages under a pyramidal roof, topped with a stone cross. The upper stage of the tower features one two-light, round arched, brick mullioned window on each face, set in a two-step rubbed brick surround with circular jamb shafts and an impost string course. Smaller, two-light louvred openings are on three faces of the middle stage of the tower, also with round, rubbed brick mullions. The ground floor stage includes a brick-edged roundel with quatrefoil tracery, and corbelled arcading. The main body of the church features round arched brick mullioned windows with alternating buttresses, along with single transept windows. Machiciolated eaves run along the top of the building. A square stair turret projects from the west wall of the north transept, while a single-story, flat-roofed vestry is located to the east of the south transept.

The west end is gabled, with the tower projecting to the left. A gabled roundel with trefoil tracery sits above a dogtooth string course. Triple arched windows feature a five-step surround with crocket capitals on the round jamb shafts. Double doors, ribbed and studded, are set within a round-arched surround; the tympanum above them is decorated with herringbone brick patterning. A projecting brick chevron course is present on the piers and flanking lancets with scalloped capitals. A further door is set into the north side of the tower.

Inside, the church is whitewashed and has a three-bay nave and one-bay crossing. It features a braced kingpost roof, and a billeted ribbed-arch braced roof to the apse, where the end braces gather together to form a pendant. A wooden gallery and organ loft are located at the west end. A two-bay arcade traverses the north transept, with a blocked capital on the central column. A panelled wood partition defines the south transept. A painted ceiling is present in the north transept, along with a panelled and painted stone pulpit. The granite font is square and sits on a massive circular stem.