Church Of St Peter And Paul

The Church of St Peter and Paul is an Anglican parish church located in Great Somerford. It largely dates to the 14th and 15th centuries, with a restoration in 1865 by J.H. Hakewill. The church is constructed of rubble stone with stone slate roofs and coped gables.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave, a south porch, a north aisle, and a chancel with a north side organ chamber. The late 14th or early 15th-century west tower features diagonal buttresses, a plinth, dripcourses, an embattled parapet, and angle pinnacles. It has small 2-light Perpendicular style bell openings, a three-sided stair turret to the south and west, a narrow Tudor-arched door under a 3-light west window with a hoodmould. The south wall has a long, flat-headed 4-light window of the late 15th century, with a hoodmould, on each side of an ashlar-fronted porch rebuilt in 1905 using old materials. A Tudor-arched doorway and a 19th-century door are within the porch. A three-sided rood-stair tower is situated at the south east angle, with a small rood-light above. The north aisle has a lean-to roof and blocked Tudor-arched doors and flat-headed 2-light Perpendicular windows. The chancel has two 3-light four-centred windows to the south, a small door between them, and one window to the north, next to an 1880 organ chamber. The east gable is coped, and the chancel features a four-light Perpendicular east window.

Inside, the nave has a collar-rafter roof with one tie-beam and a heavily moulded late 14th or early 15th-century tower arch, screened with a timber screen installed in 1903. A fine 14th-century four-bay arcade is present; the piers have four shafts and four hollows and the capitals have large, crude leaf mouldings, with hollow-and-wave mouldings to the pointed arches. Similar mouldings are on the chancel arch. The chancel has a delicately painted wagon roof, executed in 1901 by F.C. Eden, and the south-side windows are continued down as blank panelling to form a sedilia, with a piscina to the left. Fittings and monuments include a chancel east window by Lavers and Barraud, dated 1865, a north window from around 1865, and south windows from 1924 and 1978. A pedimented coloured marble plaque commemorates Rev T. Seale, who died in 1771, and a pedimented monument with twisted and vase columns commemorates Rev R. Browne, who died in 1687. Matching early 20th century woodwork is seen in the pew fronts, pulpit, organ case, stalls, and rails. A Gothic monument over the south door commemorates W. Smith, who died in 1833, while a marble plaque by Lancashire of Bath commemorates M. Parsloe, who died in 1788. One south window contains glass from 1873. Medieval fragments can be found in the rood-light, and the pulpit features a 17th-century tester. Royal arms from 1814 are displayed under the tower. In the north aisle, a restored Perpendicular octagonal font stands alongside monuments to L. Pyke (died 1813, signed Brewer of Box), W. Pyke (died 1791), E. Smith (died 1798), John Smith (c1790), and John Smith (died 1772). The three-light east window is glass from 1865, likely by Lavers and Barraud.