Church Of St Peter And St Paul

A collegiate and Anglican parish church on the High Street in Heytesbury, this is a cruciform building constructed across multiple periods from the late 12th century through the 16th century, with significant restoration undertaken between 1864 and 1867 by William Butterfield. The building is constructed in limestone and rubble stone with ashlar dressing, featuring Welsh slate roofs with ceramic ridge cresting.

The plan comprises a cruciform church with aisles to both the chancel and nave, and a south porch. The 19th-century gabled porch has a moulded pointed doorway with hoodmould. The south aisle displays three 3-light pointed windows with mullions set in deep reveals to the left of the porch, and two similarly restored 3-light windows to the right. The clerestory contains three 2-light 16th-century windows with cusped square heads and hoodmoulds. The south transept has a flat roof (formerly pitched), diagonal buttresses, and a plain pointed south window with mullions and transoms.

The south aisle of the chancel, restored in the 1860s, features hollow chamfered lancets and simple zig-zag eaves decoration. The chancel clerestory has three hollow-chamfered lancets with a blocking course and saddleback coping. The east end has angle buttresses, a restored chamfered lancet, and the chancel clerestory is topped with the same blocking course as the south side. The north aisle of the chancel, also restored in the 1860s, has hollow chamfered lancets and a pointed door with ornamental hinges leading to an integral vestry. Its clerestory contains three chamfered lancets with a blocking course matching the south side.

The north transept displays a partially blocked 3-light Perpendicular window to the east, a 19th-century Perpendicular-style window to the north (marked with a 1614 datestone above), and a shallow-pitched roof. The north aisle has four 3-light windows comparable to those in the south aisle, with a set-back buttress to the west corner. The west end features a notable 5-light Perpendicular window with 19th-century quatrefoils in the aisles.

The tower is a low two-stage structure built over the crossing. It has setback buttresses, chamfered loopholes to the first stage, and an offset bellstage with 14th-century two-light pointed windows featuring reticulated tracery and louvres. A plain string runs to the blocking course, and a stair turret with loopholes stands on the south-west side.

The interior reveals extensive medieval and Victorian workmanship. The nave is spanned by a segmental barrel-vaulted ceiling with ribs and rosettes. The four-bay aisles have octagonal piers with triple chamfered arches. The east and south-west responds are 13th-century features with attached triple-shafts. The crossing has 13th-century triple-chamfered arches on attached triple-shafts with keel mouldings. The south transept contains a 19th-century doorway to the west and a 13th-century doorway to the chancel.

The north or Hungerford Chapel is notable for its fine 16th-century stone traceried screen leading from the crossing, which features fan coving and a crocketed ogee hoodmould to a depressed archway. A 16th-century panelled doorway opens from the chancel.

The chancel has a scissor-rafter and wagon roof. Its three-bay north aisle retains one late 12th-century pier with scalloped capital and triple-shaft responds, alongside a restored east compound pier. The south aisle has restored compound piers with Purbeck marble shafts and triple chamfered arches. The fine 13th-century east end features rere-arches on Purbeck marble shafts, with 1860s polychrome tile wall decoration. A 19th-century vestry within the north aisle displays blind arcading on marble shafts.

The 1623 kneeling figures of the Moore Family were erected in the north aisle of the chancel in 1959.

The church retains numerous Butterfield fittings from his restoration, including a coloured marble font in the south aisle, nave pews, and a stone reredos with polychrome tiled flooring. A particularly fine carved wooden octagonal pulpit with sounding board dates to the late 19th century.

The stained glass is of notably high quality, particularly the Gibbs glass in the chancel and north transept. The church contains a good collection of wall memorials, including classical tablets to the Everetts in the north and south transepts, and a fine stone tablet with Doric columns to entablature and gadrooned apron commemorating Richard Snelgrove, who died in 1650. The north transept includes marble tablets to the Ash-a-Courts of Heytesbury House, signed by T. King of Bath (1817) and Reeves of Bath (1840).

The church was founded circa 1160 by Jocelin, Bishop of Salisbury, as a collegiate foundation.