Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Westleigh

A parish church of medieval origin, substantially remodelled in the 15th and 16th centuries, with later restoration. The building comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, north aisle, south transept and south porch.

The fabric is stone rubble, roughly coursed to the tower, with ashlar dressings throughout. The nave and chancel have slate roofs with coped gable ends and crested ridge tiles; the north aisle has a bitumenized scantle slate roof.

The three-stage west tower has an embattled parapet and thick buttresses covering the angles, with a polygonal stair turret on the south side. Bell-openings on the north, west and east sides have windows replaced in the 19th century, semi-circular headed with Y tracery. The first stage on the east side has single pointed arched window openings. The Perpendicular west window of four lights has foliated label stops to the hoodmould and is pointed arched; the semi-circular headed west doorway has an elaborately moulded surround and hoodmould.

The nave's south side features a tall Perpendicular straight-headed window with hoodmould of three cusped-headed lights. The south porch has moulded stone keelers to its gable end roof with an apex gablet. A niche above the pointed arched doorway contains engaged shafts with foliated decoration to the capitals and thin ribs with small capitals to the centre of the hollow chamfer of the moulded surround. The porch has a ceiled waggon roof with moulded ribs and bosses at the intersections. The pointed arched inner door has hollow and straight-chamfered moulded surround, with an early plank door and old lock. A straight-headed Perpendicular window of two cusped-headed lights stands between the south porch and transept.

The south transept has a 19th-century four-light window at its south end and a similar three-light window on the east side. The chancel has two pointed arched windows with Y tracery and hoodmoulds flanking a pointed arched priest's doorway, both 19th century. The chancel's east end has a 19th-century Decorated style three-light window with intersecting tracery. The north aisle's east end has a 19th-century window and four straight-headed granite windows of three four-centred arched lights with hoodmoulds.

Interior

The interior features a four-bay arcade with Pevsner 'A' type granite piers and roll-moulded capitals to the main shafts only. The arch to the south transept is unmoulded and pointed. Ceiled waggon roofs throughout carry moulded ribs with ornately carved bosses at the intersections. The nave has angel figures bearing shields at the foot of each rib at each wall plate. The transept and chancel have crenellated wall plates with various foliated ornamentation at intervals.

A trefoil-headed piscina with radiating ribs to the base occupies the east end of the chancel, partly retooled; a small trefoil-headed piscina is set into the south wall of the south transept. The chancel floor has a patterned Victorian tiled surface, while the nave, south transept and north aisle contain a considerable number of medieval patterned Barnstaple tiles.

The nave contains 16th-century pews: 12 on the north side, six on the south side with elaborately carved bench ends, and three to the rear south side with moulded top rails but without carving to the ends. A 19th-century pulpit is present. An Early English font with a lead-lined bowl is supported on engaged corner shafts and smaller shafts to the centre of each facet. Brass oil lamps remain intact.

The church contains paintings including a Christ by Harlow, circa 1830, and "Rizpah" by Lord Leighton. Two diamond-shaped hatchments painted with shields hang on the east wall of the south transept and the west wall of the north aisle.

Monuments include those of Charles Cutcliffe, 1745, on the north wall of the chancel; William Cleveland, 1745, and John Cleveland, 1817, in the north aisle; Archibald Cleveland by E Physick, 1854, with trophied surround; Augustus Cleveland, 1849, with a weeping maiden under a willow by M W Johnson of New Road, London; Augustus Saltern Willett, 1813, by N Dovell of Pilton, an oval medallion capped by an urn; John Cleveland, 1763, to the chancel south wall; and Thames Challacombe, 1681, on the south wall of the nave with Ionic pilasters and richly decorated surround.

Nineteenth-century stained glass fills eight of the windows, including early 19th-century glass in memory of Reverend John Torr and Thomas Berry to the south end of the south transept, and to the east end of the north aisle, commemorating Archibald Cleveland who died at Inkerman in 1854.

The building was restored in 1879 by J. F. Gould. The original fabric likely dates to the 13th century in the nave, with an early 14th-century chancel, though both were substantially remodelled in the 15th and 16th centuries when the south transept, west tower and north aisle were added.