Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a small Anglican parish church with a late Saxon foundation, significantly developed in the late 12th/early 13th century and 15th century. It was restored and extended in 1878 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. The church is built of coursed rubble stone with alternating flush quoins, a plinth to the tower and 19th-century additions, and features a stone slate roof with coped east verges and cross finials.

The west tower is in three stages, with a string course below the top stage and a shallow pitched roof between raised verges. It has low diagonal buttresses; a small round-arched three-light window to the west, with small rectangular lights on the upper stages; and two small lights and a sundial on the south side. The south side of the nave features a stone cornice immediately below the eaves, with a central grotesque carved head acting as a gutter hole. Two inserted Perpendicular windows – a two-light trefoil-headed window to the left and a three-light arch-headed window to the right in a deep splayed reveal – flank a central blocked shouldered arch doorway with chamfered jambs. The south side of the chancel has small rectangular lights, a Tudor-arched priest’s door, and a two-light Perpendicular window with deeply cusped trefoil-headed lights. A Perpendicular-style three-light window is located at the east end. Low diagonal buttresses are also present. Small single Norman lancets were inserted into the north wall of the chancel, and into Scott’s north aisle.

A large embattled porch is on the north-west corner, with elaborate tracery over a two-light window on the west wall of the aisle.

Inside, the nave has a four-bay roof with collar beams supported on arched braces. The round-headed tower arch is constructed of through stones, resting on plain chamfered imposts. The Norman chancel arch has a plain chamfer and a billeted hoodmould. Rood loft stairs are preserved on the north wall, along with a double piscina with a credence shelf on the south side. A two-bay pointed arcade opens into the north aisle. Early Saxon carving is found on the north wall at the west end. A 15th-century font is also present. The reredos is made of carved alabaster and dates to 1887.