Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

Anglican parish church with origins in the 12th century, substantially developed over subsequent centuries and restored in the 19th century.

The 12th-century nave survives with a blocked south doorway. The north aisle was rebuilt in the 13th century, as was the north porch. The transepts date to the 13th century. The tower was constructed in the 15th century, and a vestry and major restoration works were undertaken in the 19th century.

The church is built primarily of limestone. The nave and north aisle employ coursed and squared limestone with angle buttresses and a racking buttress on the north side. The transepts are constructed of coursed, squared and dressed limestone. The chancel is built of coursed limestone rubble with some ashlar blocks incorporated in the lower courses. The vestry is of ashlar limestone, and the tower is ashlar limestone with diagonal buttresses. The roof is limestone slate with slightly stepped gable coping and decorative upright cross finials.

The plan comprises a north aisle entered via a north porch, a nave, a crossing, north and south transepts, and a chancel with a vestry attached to its south side. The nave contains a three-light window with Perpendicular tracery and a hood with stops. A pointed blocked doorway lies to its left, and a blocked Norman doorway in the south wall features a plain semi-circular tympanum supported on moulded imposts. The north porch has a pointed arch with flat chamfering and a hood. The north transept contains a single light in its west wall with a trefoil head and hood with stops in the form of heads, a three-light north window with Perpendicular tracery and 19th-century hood with stops as heads, and a two-light east window with ogee cusping and a trefoil over. The chancel has two 19th-century two-light windows in its north wall and a single similar window also in the north wall. The east window is a 19th-century triple lancet with a hood reflecting the line of the tops of the lights. The vestry has single lights with trefoil heads. The south transept dates to the 19th century and has a two-light east window with quatrefoil, a two-light south window with vesica, and a single light west window with decorated tracery comprising a vesica flanked by two mouchettes. All windows have diamond leaded panes. A flight of stone steps between the south transept and vestry leads to a small plank door giving access to a multi-angular corner turret that provides access to the tower.

The tower is Perpendicular in style and comprises two stages. A string course runs just above the top of the buttresses, with another string course featuring gargoyles at the four corners just below an embattlemented parapet with four pinnacles. Four two-light belfry windows have quatrefoils and limestone slate louvres.

Internally, the north door leads into a narrow lean-to aisle with a two-bay arcade, with a third bay cut off by the insertion of the central tower. The arcade features pointed chamfered arches on octagonal piers with shallow capitals and moulded abaci. A large indentation marks the west end of the north aisle above floor height, and the outline of a blocked doorway appears in the west wall to the nave, with an inlet for a blocked south doorway opposite the north door. The nave has a 19th-century timber arch-braced roof. Similar roofs appear in the north and south transepts, with braces supported on projecting hammer beams themselves supported on decorated stone corbels. The crossing is bounded by four pointed compound arches, each of five orders, with angels projecting from each capital. A fan vault above, dating to 1859, has decorative bosses. The south transept has a 14th-century piscina with an ogee head and credence shelf in its south wall. Geometric coloured tiles form the floor of the crossing and aisles in the nave and south transept, while the north transept and chancel have limestone flag flooring. The chancel roof is 19th-century in style, as in the nave and transepts, but with cusped braces supported on decorative corbels.

Medieval stained glass fragments are preserved in the west window, depicting two figures and two stags, with further fragments in the east window of the north transept. The south transept west wall contains 19th-century stained glass.

The church contains a Norman tub-shaped font on a modern pillar and plinth in the north transept, 19th-century pews and pulpit, and a 19th-century stone tablet with gold lettering on the blocking of the south doorway and Royal arms of George III to the right. The chancel contains two 19th-century marble tablets and one marble monument in the form of a sarcophagus on the left wall, together with three 18th-century ledger stones in the floor of the sanctuary.

The building of the chancel, transepts and tower is believed to be associated with the Abbots of Evesham, who are reputed to have used Willersey Manor as a summer residence. The pillars supporting the tower and vault are said to be copies of the pillars of Evesham Abbey, which were destroyed during the Reformation.