Church Of St Peter

ST 02 SW CLAYHANGER CLAYHANGER

7/83 Church of St Peter - 5.4.66 GV II*

Parish church. West tower possibly C13, the fabric otherwise very rebuilt 1879-81 but window details suggest a C14 and earlier fabric. Local stone rubble; slate roofs; C19 crested ridge tiles to nave and chancel. Plan: of west tower, nave, chancel, south porch and north-east vestry. The C19 restoration involved re-roofing, a new chancel arch and a good deal of renewed fenestration in the Decorated style and probably repair of pre and post C14 windows. Exterior: The chancel has a 3-light C19 Decorated east window, a round-headed 1-light window on the south side, (possibly C12) and an unusual square-headed 2-light north window with trefoil-headed lights that is probably C14. The porch side of the nave has a 2-light Decorated C19 window to the west and 1-light chamfered lancet to the east. The south side has a 2-light square-headed cusped C15 window to the west with carved label stops, much renewed, and a similarly renewed C14 2-light Perpendicular window to the east of the porch. Slim 3-stage battlemented west tower with short diagonal buttresses, no west door and a 2-light C19 west window; belfry openings to all 4 faces, 2-light to the west face. C19 gabled north-east vestry with 2-light transomed north window and square-headed chamfered west doorway. The porch has 2- centred inner and outer doorways, the inner doorway with pyramid stops; probably C15 arched brace roof and timber topped benches. Interior: Plastered walls; plain 2-centred tower arch; C19 double-chamfered chancel arch the inner order polychromatic on stone corbels. C19 2-centred chamfered arch into vestry; C19 boarded wagons to nave and chancel. The chancel fittings are decent C19, including good tiling, a communion rail and poppy-head choir stalls. C16 timber frieze re-used as reredos, C17 altar table. The nave has a C17 timber lectern on a turned stem, an altered C19 timber drum pulpit and a small circa 1200 (Pevsner) font with a fluted bowl and moulded stem. Good set of circa early C16 carved bench ends fixed to later benches, the series extended in the C19. Various motifs include foliage and profile heads with blind tracery below. Numerous C17 and C18 memorial stones re-used as floor slabs, some with verses and armorial bearings. East window with memorial date of 1887 probably by Drake of Exeter. Devon Nineteenth-Century Churches Project.

Listing NGR: ST0217422988