Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Little Rissington

This is an Anglican parish church dating from the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. It was restored around 1850 by Francis Niblett, then extended and altered in 1883 by W. Bassett Smith.

The church is constructed primarily of limestone rubble, with some ashlar in the south wall of the nave. The west end of the nave, where it was extended in the 19th century, the north aisle and porch are built of rock-faced limestone with dressed stone quoins. The tower is of coursed squared and finely dressed limestone. The roof is covered in stone slate.

The building comprises a nave with a projecting south porch and north aisle, with the tower set in the angle between the north aisle and the 19th-century extension to the west end of the nave. The south wall of the nave features diagonal and side buttresses and a tall lancet window. Either side of the porch are two 14th-century two-light windows with quatrefoils over, featuring ogee-curved cusping and stopped hoods. A 19th-century studded plank door with decorative strap hinges occupies a round-arched surround dating from around 1200, comprising an arch of three orders with roll-mouldings on two orders of cylindrical shafts and a roll-moulded hood. The west window is a 19th-century three-light design with flowing tracery. The south wall has an ashlar parapet with moulded coping.

The 13th-century chancel features clasping buttresses and three lancet windows on each side, with an additional lancet of cusped head at lower level on the south side. A corbel table with hollow-moulded corbels runs at eaves level; one corbel on the south side bears carved head decoration. The original graduated triple lancet window at the east end dates from the 13th century. Traces of at least one, possibly two, priest's doorways survive in the north wall of the chancel.

The 19th-century north aisle has side and angle buttresses with pointed single and two-light windows, and a pointed three-light window with quatrefoils at the east end.

The 15th-century tower is buttressed and three-stage. An inscription reading 'T K C W / 1703 / E L' below the parapet on the south side suggests restoration around 1703. The second stage features a single light with a four-centred arched head and stone louvres. The upper stage has similar two-light belfry windows with carved spandrels. A battlemented parapet crowns the tower, with a string between the second and third stages. The 19th-century projecting porch features a stilted-arched entrance and stepped coped gables. A sanctus bell turret without a bell, with an arch brattished top, sits at the east end of the nave. Upright cross finials crown the gable ends of the chancel, north aisle and porch. The roof features stone ridge tiling with curved apex.

The interior is plastered. The nave contains two 12th-century arches with cylindrical piers supporting large overhanging square scalloped capitals. An octagonal pier with a square hollow-moulded capital has been inserted where the south-east corner of the tower rests on the west arch of the nave arcade. A double-chamfered pointed arch springs from this pier between the tower and the aisle. A small 15th-century flat-chamfered Tudor-arched opening in the right of the eastern arch of the nave arcade formerly gave access to stone stairs to the rood loft via a similar opening. The 13th-century chancel arch comprises two orders. The inner order springs from a corbelled impost with scalloped decoration to the soffit of each corbel. The left-hand impost has a moulded top with daisy decoration below; the right-hand impost is more heavily restored and lacks this decoration.

The nave comprises three bays with two half bays in addition at either end. The roof trusses date from the late 18th and early 19th centuries, featuring arch-braced collars and raking struts: the arched bracing is supported on simple moulded corbels, with a ridge purlin above the collar and scissor bracing above. The north aisle roof comprises 19th-century arch-braced trusses with king posts.

The flooring includes coloured tile and encaustic tiling in the nave and chancel. A large cinquefoil-headed recess occupies the east end of the north aisle within the vestry. A piscina, now partly hidden by the pulpit, survives in the south wall of the nave. A 14th-century trefoil-headed piscina is set in the south wall of the chancel, with an aumbry (formerly with a door) in the opposite wall.

Furnishings include a 15th-century octagonal font with quatrefoils on each side in the aisle opposite the south door, a 19th-century octagonal stone pulpit, and 19th and early 20th-century pews and choir stalls.

Monuments include an early 18th-century stone ledger with inscription now partly obscured by a 20th-century organ at the east end of the north aisle, a monument to Maria, wife of Robert Glyn, died 1682, on the north wall of the chancel featuring a circular inscription plaque with marble surround, two cherubs leaning towards a skull at the top and two winged cherubs' heads towards the bottom, and a 19th-century marble monument to Robert le Marchant, former rector died 1915, his wife and three of their children. A 20th-century Royal Air Force memorial window is located at the west end of the nave.