Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

Parish church at Harbertonford, built 1859–60 by J N Nottidge when Harbertonford was made into a separate ecclesiastical parish in 1860. Constructed in slate and local stone rubble with freestone dressings, with a slate roof featuring stone coping to gable ends decorated with moulded kneelers and stone apex crosses. Crested ridge tiles crown the roof.

The building displays a cruciform plan consisting of a nave, apsidal chancel, north and south transepts, a spire at the crossing, a vestry in the south-west angle, and a north porch. The architectural style is Gothic with Early English and Decorated details.

Exterior features include pairs of 2-light Decorated style windows on the north and south sides, and on the west of the south transept and east of the north transept, all without hoodmoulds. A 3-light nave west window displays intersecting tracery with a hoodmould and head stops, while a 3-light north window of the north transept features trefoil tracery with similar mouldings. The south transept contains two cusped lancets and a 3-sided rose window in the gable with mouchettes around a central trefoil. A contemporary lean-to vestry occupies the south-east angle, with a moulded doorway on its south side and a tall chimney stack at its junction with the transept, featuring a shaft with gabled cap and set-offs. Three lancets line the east side of the vestry. The 3-sided apse of the chancel displays pairs of cusped lancets with hoodmoulds and head stops; the chancel's north window is similar but with a single lancet. The gabled south porch has an Early English style doorway with shafts, moulded capitals, and a deeply moulded high pointed arch with hoodmould. The porch interior features scissor-braced roof and a plank floor with cover moulds. At the crossing, three large slated broaches support an octagonal timber bellry with louvres, cusped arches, and brackets. Above this rises an octagonal slated timber spire crowned with an ornate iron weathervane.

Small moulded corbels appear in the angles of the transepts, with a moulded stringcourse at sill level rising to higher sill levels. The pyramidal chancel roof is topped with an iron cross. A buttress with set-offs appears on the south side of the nave.

The interior features scissor-brace truss roofs to the nave and north and south transepts, supported on ashlar posts mounted on corbels. Boarding between the ashlaring displays a frieze of pierced trefoils. The crossing roof consists of straight rafters rising from small arch braces at the corners to an octagon supporting the spire. The apsidal chancel has arch-braced roof rising from corbels and meeting at the apex, above which is a short king-post with struts. Boarded ashlaring with a trefoil frieze continues throughout the chancel.

Apse windows feature moulded shafts, stiff-leaf capitals, cusped heads, and hoodmoulds with headstops and stiff-leaf carving. Contemporary stained glass in the apse windows, appearing to depict scenes from the life of St Peter, is the only coloured glass present. Contemporary furnishings are largely complete, including softwood benches, pulpit, a simple screen at the west end, and font. An organ dated 1886–7 is also installed.

A plaque on the south wall of the nave reads: "In memory of Thomasene Anthony of Great Englebourne, who built and partly endowed this church in the year 1859".