Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

An Anglican parish church dating to the 15th century with an extension and restoration dated 1638, and major restoration and extension in 1891 by Garner. The building is constructed of rubble, ashlar, and stone slate with slate roofs.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, north porch, north chapel, south aisle and vestry. The architecture is mainly Perpendicular in style.

The square west tower is of three stages with weathered, set-back buttresses and a south west polygonal stair turret with a narrow pointed door. The first stage has a plinth and small west door under a dripmould, below a three-light window with a hood mould featuring extraordinarily large stops carved as a musician and a woman with rosary. The south side is blank, while the north side has a blank three-light pointed window with heavy hollow moulded tracery and a hood mould carved with an elephant and a rhinoceros. The second stage, above a weathered string course, has one two-light blank window per side except to the east, with stops including a grotesque cat and dog, toad and monk. The third stage, above another weathered string course, has one two-light window per side with smaller hood moulds. Above the cornice with gargoyles is a castellated parapet with crocketted corner pinnacles. The stair turret is slightly higher with smaller castellation.

The nave is largely obscured to the south by the aisle. The visible bay has a three-light straight head window under a hood mould. To the north are two similar windows below a castellated parapet.

The gabled north porch has stone slates and a pointed arch under a flat hood mould with decorated spandrels. Above is an empty image niche with a nodding canopy and finials, and within is a four-centred arch doorway with a plank door with tracery panels. Above this is a mutilated image niche.

The gabled north chapel, dated 1638, is of two bays with thin buttresses. To the west is a three-light restored window similar to those in the nave, above a plank door in a Tudor arch, with a blank quatrefoil in the gable. The east end is similar but lacks the door. To the north are two similar windows and a castellated parapet.

The two-bay gabled chancel dates to 1891 and has two three-light straight head windows with hood moulds to the north and one similar window to the south. A large five-light east window with delicate tracery lights the east end. The chancel is entirely of ashlar with extensive red lichen staining.

The gabled south aisle, also of 1891, has four windows similar to those in the chancel, comprising three-light pointed windows to the east and west. A central castellated chimney is present, and a castellated organ loft protrudes at the east end. A low castellated vestry to the south shares similar details with the aisle.

Interior

The tower arch has double wave moulding. The nave has a four-bay arcade on octagonal piers leading to the aisle, with a similar two-bay arcade to the chapel. There is little difference between the organ loft and chancel arches. The roof is a restored wagon roof with a rood stair door. The chancel has triple sedilia and a two-tier piscina, details which, like most internal features, date to 1891.

Fittings

The font is a much restored octagonal piece of 15th-century origin with a Jacobean hood. A 18th-century timber pulpit has raised and fielded panels and thin foliate carving. A 17th-century parish chest is also present.

Monuments

The north manor chapel contains two glorious Carew monuments. A monument to Sir John Carew and his wife Elizabeth, dated 1640, features recumbent figures on a large chest tomb with paired corner pilasters flanking crests and frieze to the ends and praying family and children to the sides; a good deal of colour remains. Another monument to John Carew (died 1683) and Dorothy shows recumbent figures with an angel on an elaborate chest tomb with Ruscan columns and seated daughters in niches. A wall monument to Thomas Carew, dated 1719, is of marble with composite columns, a pediment with putti and acroterion, half-relief busts flanking a coat of arms, and an apron with text. A wall monument to Elizabeth Carew (died 1747) features dark marble ground, a broken pediment, and text supported by scrolls, with an apron containing a putto.

A Lansdowne family wall monument in the aisle is dated from 1668 onwards, with Ionic columns carrying a pediment flanked by a coat of arms, a slate cartouche with memento mori and text, and corbels flanking an apron with putto and swags. Another Lansdowne family monument in the nave, dated from 1731, is of marble with fluted pilasters carrying a frieze and cornice below family arms. A reclining female figure in the aisle appears to be a remnant of a late 17th-century tomb.