Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul, Godalming

This substantial parish church is principally of the 12th to 14th centuries, with earlier origins and later additions and alterations. Major restorations were undertaken in 1840 and 1879. The building is constructed of Bargate rubblestone with ashlar dressings, beneath plain tile roofs and a leaded spire.

The church comprises a 4-bay aisled nave, where the two eastern bays contain 11th-century work. The aisles were added in the 13th century and extended westwards in the 15th or 16th century. Further extensions to the west, north and south were made in the 19th century in two phases. A south porch dates from 1879. The transepts are of the 12th century but were subsequently altered, with the north transept extended in 1870. The crossing tower has an early 12th-century lower stage, a 13th-century belfry stage, and a 14th-century parapet and spire. The chancel is a lower 3-bay structure extended eastwards in the 14th century and later restored. North and south chapels were added in the early 13th century; the north chapel was rebuilt with a vestry in 1879. An octagonal extension at the north-west corner dates from the 1960s and is not of special interest.

The exterior of the nave has a 19th-century appearance in Decorated style, with a plinth, double board door to the porch and three 2-light windows. The south transept displays a 3-light Perpendicular window under a hoodmould with a wall monument to its left. The north transept has a Perpendicular window, a 12th-century doorway with imposts, and a 19th-century vice on the east side featuring a Caernarvon-arched doorway, slit windows and leafy finial.

The tower is ornamented with some tile quoins and roll-moulded bands below and above the belfry stage. The belfry stage has two round-arched louvred lights on each side. The parapet is corbelled with a table below the spire. The spire itself has gabled louvred vents to the corners at its base, 8 ribs, ribbed leading, lucarnes at the top and a weathercock.

The south chapel features Perpendicular windows of 2 and 3 lights under hoodmoulds, and a 13th-century triple-lancet window. Its east end has a 15th or 16th-century Tudor-arched doorway with shields in the spandrels and above it a late 13th-century window with 5 stepped lancets below 3 roundels with cinquefoils and a hoodmould. The chancel has a Perpendicular-style 3-light window in its south wall and a 19th-century 5-light window with geometric tracery to the east end. The north chapel has an 1879 east window copying that of the south chapel, and 1879 Perpendicular-style door and two windows on the north side.

The interior reveals considerable medieval detail. The nave arcades have 12th-century circular columns with triple-chamfered pointed arches at the east end; elsewhere the columns are octagonal with double-chamfered pointed arches. The roof is panelled with early 16th-century bosses. The tower has 12th-century pointed arches to the transepts and a restored Norman arch to the chancel. The transepts feature 13th-century double-chamfered pointed arches on attached circular columns to the aisles and chapels, with heads of 12th-century windows and a piscina and aumbry in the south transept.

The chancel is a 13th-century, 2-bay structure with pointed-arched arcades on circular and octagonal columns (attached at the ends). The heads of 12th-century windows survive, some with painted decoration. A 14th-century squint is present in the south wall, and an early 14th-century aumbry, piscina and sedilia are visible. The roof is of crown post construction. Both chapels contain piscinas and aumbries. The south chapel preserves the outline of a former 13th-century east window with painted decoration and a lancet in the south wall with a painting of St John the Baptist. Some old glass remains in the east window, and a fine collared rafter roof, probably of the 16th century, features heavily-moulded tie beams and wall plate with incised decoration to corbels on the north side.

The monuments include a stone chest tomb in the south chapel of John and Elizabeth Westbrook, featuring a diving cable-moulded base, cusped blind tracery to the sides and a moulded lid. In the chancel, a wall monument to Judeth Elyott (died 1615) displays a kneeling figure of a lady before a book on a lectern within an elaborately-decorated aedicule, the cornice surmounted by a coat of arms, shields and end pedestals with skull and hour-glass, and a tablet with skull and cross-bones beneath. Brasses commemorate Thomas and Joan Purvoche (died 1509, represented by two figures) and John Barker (died 1595).

The church contains important fittings including a 15th or early 16th-century chalk font in the south chapel with a pyramidal base, an octagonal stand with a pointed arch to each face, roll moulding and an octagonal bowl. A panelled polygonal pulpit of around 1600 is elaborately carved with strapwork decoration and decorated lozenge and rectangular panels. A 19th-century gallery was installed in the north chapel.