Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

This is a parish church of mid-13th-century origin with significant early 15th-century additions and later alterations. The building is constructed of limestone rubble and freestone with stone dressings, and is roofed with Cotswold stone slate with raised coped verges. It comprises a west tower, south-west porch, nave and chancel, and north and south aisles.

The tower dates to the early 15th century and is three storeys high in Perpendicular style. The west door has a pointed arch surrounded by two roll-moulded and hollowed orders with a hood mould. Above this is a three-light window. The second stage features lancets on all sides and a clock to the south. The third stage has a two-light window with trefoil heads and pierced stone tracery, with a metal sundial to the south. The tower has a plinth, string courses, diagonal weathered buttresses, a gargoyle to each corner, and an embattled parapet. A stair turret to the north has a pitched roof and slit windows.

The south-west porch, also early 15th-century, has a pointed arched south door in a hollow-moulded surround with hood mould. It features weathered diagonal buttresses, a string course, and a pair of two-light unglazed windows with trefoil heads to the west. Two gargoyles ornament the south side, and there is a quatrefoil frieze and cornice.

The north and south aisles have three-light west windows with pointed arches and trefoil heads with stopped hood moulds. The five-bay north aisle has four two-light north windows in chamfered rectangular reveals with buttresses. The four-bay south aisle has four four-light south windows with flat heads and hood moulds, a small blocked window with trefoil head and splayed reveal, string courses, and weathered buttresses, the central one incorporating a chimney. The north aisle has an early Perpendicular east window of three lights with a stopped hood mould and a door beneath. The chancel and south aisle have similar three-light later windows with trefoil heads and hood moulds, larger in the chancel, with a raised parapet wall between them. All windows have leaded lights except the chancel and tower windows.

The porch interior has a flat common rafter roof and stone benches to the sides. Remains of 15th-century stone carving depicting a praying woman survive, along with a circular geometric scratch-mark and the remains of a holy water stoup. The door itself has a four-centred arch with a square moulded surround and heavy hood mould.

The tower interior has west and south doors in deep reveals and a small north door with an irregular pointed arch serving the stair. The north door is of two planks with strap hinges. The tower arch is tall and pointed with a chamfered inner shaft.

The north aisle has an arcade of three arches with pointed outer arches and a wider central span. Two piers to the west comprise four clustered shafts with moulded capitals and bases. The eastern pier was altered around 1470 to allow a rood screen to be carried across the entrance to the chancel; the eastern arch springs from a half-shaft on a mask corbel.

The south aisle has an arcade of four pointed arches. The piers have slender shafts at the corners with wave-mould between ringed capitals. A low stone screen stands at the base of the east arch, which gives access via an east door to a private entry to Dyrham House. Remains of a piscina are visible on the south wall, and there is a blocked window with a chamfered triangular head. The south windows have inner segmental heads. The nave and aisles are ceiled with wagon roofs featuring cornices.

The church was altered around 1470 and the south aisle was restored for William Blathwayt after 1688. The building was redecorated in 1964 by E.F. Tew.

The fittings include a late Norman font in the nave with a square bowl and two large scallops to each side, and a 17th-century vase-shaped stone font in the south aisle with an acanthus-carved pedestal. There is a Jacobean carved wooden pulpit in the nave with a sounding-board, and a 16th-century Flemish altar triptych. The chancel retains remains of 18th-century carved panelling and a Jacobean carved sanctuary chair. Medieval encaustic tiles are present on the floor of the south aisle.

Nine hatchments from the early 18th century to 1872 hang in the south aisle, including a large one of William Blathwayt dated 1717. A stone coat of arms is on the south wall of the aisle, and royal arms are in the tower.

The floor of the south aisle contains brasses to Sir Maurice Russell, 1416, in armour, and his wife Isobel, with canopies and Latin verses. Also in the south aisle is a stone tomb of George Wynter, 1581, and his wife, with stone recumbent effigies and a canopy of two arches, one with Corinthian columns and a heavy superstructure. A finely carved hanging marble monument to Mary Blathwayt and her parents by John Harvey, with a contract dated 1710 and a cost of £90, is also present. A marble tablet to William Blathwayt, 1839, by Sievier completes the south aisle monuments.

The chancel contains a stone monument with a skull, scrolled open pediment, and Latin inscription to William Laugton, 1663; a wooden board to Reverend Mervin Perry and his wife, 1753; and a stone tablet to Amy Trewman, 1677.

The north aisle contains a baroque stone monument with a skull, swags, and crossed bones to Isaac Tyler, 1693; a marble monument to Francis Freeman, 1757; and a marble monument to Sir George Best Robinson, 1855. Three 17th-century brass memorial plates commemorate Thomas Weare (1697), William Weare (1697), and Mary Weare (1639).

A marble tablet in the nave commemorates Peter Grand, 1792.

The chancel window contains four 15th-century tracery lights with figures under canopies: St John the Baptist with bare legs, the Virgin, St John the Evangelist (restored), and a female saint. In the tracery of the north aisle west window is a piece of grisaille glass showing the white rose of York. The tower's west window dates to 1846 and was created by Thomas Willement.