Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

A parish church with substantial 13th-century fabric to the nave, chancel and lower stage of the tower. The 15th century saw the addition of most of the south aisle, the north transept and the upper stages of the tower. The church was substantially restored in the 1880s in Perpendicular style by William White, who installed most of the fenestration and added a vestry. An inscription over the south porch records that 'This church was beautified in ye year of Our Lord 1704'.

The building is constructed of coursed shale rubble with freestone dressings, Hamhill stone for the windows and a slate roof. The tower, positioned at the east end of the south aisle, is capped by four pinnacles with crosses added in the 19th century. It features low pointed unmoulded arches into the nave and south aisle, four 2-light bell-openings with trefoiled cusping and flat hood-moulds, and a 13th-century lancet window to the east. Embattled parapets run along the tower, south aisle and porch. A large slate sundial dated 1756 is positioned above the south porch, alongside a damaged armorial shield. The 15th-century south porch is supported by a transverse hollow chamfered beam and contains a 13th-century doorway with pyramid stops surrounding an original door complete with lock. A 13th-century west doorway has a chamfered 2-centred arch over an early door and is accompanied by a late 19th-century porch incorporating some reused roof timbers and a reused moulded and crenellated wall-plate. The vestry features a corbelled stone smoke vent.

Internally, the three-bay south nave arcade has B-type piers (in Pevsner's classification) with varied capitals: vine leaf decoration in the western pier's capital, fern leaf in the other three, moulded heads in the two end capitals, and blank shields in foliage in the central ones. The nave, south aisle and chancel have late 19th-century unceiled waggon roofs, although the latter two may incorporate earlier timber. They feature moulded ribs with carved bosses, carved leaves at the intersections of the ribs and carved fleurons in the wall-plate. The 19th-century north transept arch is supported on its west side by a massive 15th-century timber pier with four shafts of rough wave moulding between them and fleurons in the capitals. West of this pier, a small projection in the angle of the transept and nave may once have formed a hagioscope to the north transept chapel. The chancel arch is simple and unmoulded with a pointed profile.

The church contains a badly mutilated piscina with cusped arch shelf and a carved head in a scalloped drain. In the north chancel wall is an unrestored but slightly damaged recumbent effigy of an unknown lady in 15th-century dress in a low recess with quatrefoil decoration in the base. A wall monument erected by Christopher Boyce (died 1744) is positioned above and towards the east end, featuring a central medallion below an emblazoned shield with floriate surround, cherubs and linen folds in painted decoration. Above the effigy is a white-framed marble monument with grey background to Lady Anne Chichester (died 1723). The north wall of the nave contains three wall monuments: to George Lugg (died 1650) with a plaque within Ionic colonnettes and broken scrolled pediment, featuring an unrestored painted medallion; to Frances Lugg (died 1712) with a marble bust over Corinthian surround; and to Grace Lancey (died 1683) in pink marble with medallion and skulls above. In the south aisle, west of the porch, is a wall monument to Anne, wife of George Newbold (died 1860) and George Newbold (died 1821), signed by J Hughes of Barnstaple. A 12th-century font with a square bowl on a round stem is supported by pillars with four flat blank arches to each side of the top.

The east window was designed by Kempe in 1898, while other fenestration by W White consists of uncoloured glass in rectangular and diamond pattern.