Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a grand parish church that stands adjacent to and south of Tiverton Castle on a cliff overlooking the River Exe to the west. Although partly 15th-century in date, it incorporates a re-sited 12th-century doorway. The south porch and chapel were added in 1517, with the porch rebuilt in 1825. The south chapel was restored in 1829 under the supervision of GA Boyce, with Watkins as mason. Between 1853 and 1856, the church underwent very substantial rebuilding, restoration and extension to the designs of Edward Ashworth of Exeter.

The church is built of snecked and coursed rubble local purple and volcanic masonry. The medieval work features Beerstone and, unusually for Devon churches, Ham Hill stone dressings, while Ashworth's 19th-century rebuilding uses Bath stone dressings. The show front of the south porch and south chapel is faced in Beerstone ashlar on a local purple rubble plinth. The roof is concealed behind parapets. Cast-iron rainwater goods include some dated hoppers with Gothic detail, some stamped Paine and Haydon.

The plan comprises a three-bay chancel with north and south chancel chapels, a six-bay clerestoried nave with north and south aisles, a west tower, the two-bay Greenway chapel with porch adjoining to the west on the south side, and a two-bay organ chamber with vestry adjoining to the east on the north side. During Ashworth's 1853-1856 restoration, the north aisle was doubled in width. He also added the organ chamber and vestry, rebuilt the chancel, and rebuilt both aisle arcades in Bath stone while preserving the Beerstone Perpendicular capitals and responds. The church had been structurally unsound before this restoration work.

The exterior is Perpendicular in manner, although most of the windows and much of the masonry is Victorian. Pevsner described it as "a gorgeously ostentatious display of civic pride", particularly noting the outstanding late Perpendicular Greenway chapel and porch ensemble on the south side, which forms the show front to St Peter Street. The building has a plinth with moulded string and tall parapets, mostly embattled with lavish carving not only on the Perpendicular tower but particularly on the Greenway chapel and porch. Ashworth's work is characterised by richly-carved corbel tables below the parapet including outsize gargoyles.

The chancel, slightly lower than the nave, is gabled with set-back buttresses topped by tall pinnacles with crocketed finials. It has a five-light 1850s traceried east window with intersecting tracery, hoodmould and carved label stops. The north and south chancel windows are also Victorian, two-light and traceried with transoms.

The south chancel chapel has a six-light east window with king mullion and a Ham Hill buttress alongside with set offs. The south side is buttressed with elaborate buttresses featuring set offs, carvings and pinnacles, some heavily restored, and a frieze of carved ships on the embattled parapet. There are three four-light traceried Perpendicular style windows and a brattished Tudor arched doorway with carved spandrels, truncating the central buttress. This doorway has a probably 17th-century or early 18th-century recessed two-leaf door with fielded panels.

The two-bay Greenway chapel projects off the south aisle and is a tour de force of late Perpendicular decoration, much restored. It features buttresses with set offs, three-dimensional carvings and niches. The friezes below the stepped pierced parapet are carved with motifs appropriate to Greenway's mercantile interests: ships, emblems of the wool trade, arms of the merchant venturers' and drapers' companies, and a string course carved with scenes from the life of Christ. The east end of the chapel has a Tudor-arched tomb recess with a carved chest displaying four panels of angels holding heraldic shields. Black letter carved inscriptions record Greenway's foundation of the chapel and date of death.

The south porch projects forward slightly from the chapel with diagonal buttresses but is part of the same decorative design. Above the springing of the arch of the moulded doorway, the facade is carved with blank tracery, heraldic shields, texts and niches. Figural scenes on the frieze date from 1908. The west return is local rubble rather than Beerstone ashlar, and the poor condition of the parapet carving and the carvings on the buttresses indicate just how heavily restored the carved work is on the show fronts of the porch and chapel.

The splendid four-stage west tower is very tall with set-back buttresses with set offs, decorated with sculptures of beasts, and topped by a Ham Hill embattled parapet and corner pinnacles. The west face has a deeply recessed moulded arched west door with carved spandrels and shallow niches to left and right. Pevsner suggests that this may be part of an early 17th-century programme of restoration. There is a large, deeply-recessed four-light Ham Hill west window with a king mullion, and tall two-light transomed belfry windows on the north, south and west sides with stone lattice. The south face has a deeply-recessed two-light window containing what appears to be a delicate lattice of Ham Hill quatrefoils.

The north side of the church is wholly Ashworth's work and bears a plaque reading "restored and enlarged 1853-1856", except for the presumably re-sited round-headed 12th-century doorway with dogtooth decoration. The north side is buttressed with mostly four-light 19th-century traceried windows. The vestry has a pierced parapet and doorway on the east side.

Inside, the porch interior is very fine with a stone vault panelled with ogee reticulation and carved motifs. Above the inner doorway, a tympanum shows a carved relief of John and Joan Greenway kneeling on either side of a carving showing the Assumption of the Virgin. The doorway into the Greenway chapel from the porch has a remarkable door with early Renaissance pilasters with arabesques below the middle rail and blind Gothic tracery above.

The interior of the church has 19th-century timber tie beam roof trusses with brackets on stone carved corbels and a painted ceilure to the sanctuary. The aisles have 19th-century A-frame roofs. The chancel arch has blind panelling to the responds and capitals carved with boars' heads and a phoenix. The two-bay Beerstone arcades into the chancel chapels are probably medieval. The chapels are screened off with 19th-century or early 20th-century parcloses and a north-south screen to the north chapel. The nave arcade has Perpendicular style piers by Ashworth incorporating good carved medieval capitals. The Tudor arched clerestory windows appear to be wholly Victorian.

The Greenway chapel is screened off from the main body of the church by a full-height two-bay Beerstone screen with massive open arches on a low wall decorated with blind tracery. The roof of the Greenway chapel is a stone vault, panelled, with twisted openwork pendants. An inscription in a niche records Boyce's work in 1829. Ashworth's organ chamber cum vestry has a double arch to answer the openings to the Greenway chapel. The tall tower arch has blind panelling to the responds and a moulded arch.

Fittings include 19th-century and later chancel and choir furnishings, with 1850s floor tiles to the chancel and choir and east end dado behind later curtains. There are carved choir stalls, an 1853 stone drum pulpit by Ashworth with blind panelled sides on a wineglass stem, and an elaborate 1909 font by Harbottle with octagonal bowl and stem decorated with saints under nodding ogee arches. The late Victorian brass eagle lectern has enamel inlay. The nave contains 19th-century benches, some with doors and numbers. The north-south screen to the north chancel chapel and the reredos to the chapel were designed as First World War memorials by Sydney Greenslade and executed by Herbert Read. The organ dates from 1696 by Christian Smith and probably John Snetzler, with the case reputed to include carvings by Grinling Gibbons. A grand brass candelabra was purchased in 1709. The 19th-century mayor's pew incorporates good probably early 17th-century unicorn and lion carvings.

Monuments include a Gothic carved chest tomb on the south side of the chancel to John Waldron, a local merchant who founded almshouses in Wellbrook Street, with carved inscription on top. On the other side of the chancel is a later chest tomb to another Tiverton merchant, George Slee, founder of Slee's almshouses in St Peter Street, who died in 1603. The chest is carved with Renaissance cartouches with caryatids at the corners. There is a wall monument to Roger Giffard, who died in 1603, in the chancel with paired columns, and a wall monument with open segmental pediment to John Newte, who died in 1678. Numerous floor slabs are found in the chancel chapels and at the west end.

The stained glass comprises an important series of Victorian and Edwardian windows representing national and local glass makers including Hardman (south aisle), east and west windows by William Wailes, north aisle west window by Drake of Exeter, and north aisle Sanders memorial window by Fouracre and Watson of Plymouth.

St Peter's is one of the grandest parish churches in Devon, remarkable for the architectural impact of the mercantile interest in the town as demonstrated in the Greenway aisle and porch. John Greenway became an official in the Draper's Company and is known to have traded through King's Lynn as well as London, where he seems to have been based for his working life. He is reputed to have retired to Tiverton. He was the patron of the almshouses in Gold Street.