Church of St Peter and St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

Large parish church of early 14th-century date, restored in 1862 and 1878. The building comprises a nave with north and south aisles, north and south porches, a chancel, an organ chamber, and a vestry, with a detached tower.

The north facade is constructed of roughly squared grey stone brought to courses, with larger squared stone to the quoins and ashlar to the windows. The south and most of the west faces are faced with smooth reddish render lined as ashlar. The chancel south and east walls are built of well-squared stone approaching ashlar quality. The roof is late 20th-century machine-made red clay tile.

The north facade features a high porch in the centre of the unbuttressed aisle, with a chamfered two-centred archway and hoodmould. The porch is furnished with wrought-iron gates comprising two rails at about one metre up with a St Andrew's cross between, and spiral dog bars with spearheads. The top rail follows the arch with another rail to a nearly similar line below, with main bars bearing spear and volute heads. To the right of the porch is a two-light window with trefoil heads to the lights and a solid stone panel to the flat hoodmould. To the left is a three-light window with similar trefoil heads and a three-light window with flying ogee heads to the lights below a pointed head. Gable parapets to the porch, aisle, nave, and chancel have cross-gablet apexes with stone crosses; only the porch has projecting moulded kneelers. The two-bay chancel has a large central buttress and two-light windows with cinquefoil ogee heads to the lights, quatrefoils over, and hoodmoulds.

The west face has three gables with a square-set buttress to the nave only, which has a splayed plinth. The ridge and windows to the aisles are offset towards the centre, with two-light windows with ogee heads and recessed spandrels to flat hoodmoulds. The nave has a wide two-centred moulded doorway with hoodmould and double boarded doors with applied timber tracery. Above is a flat cinquefoiled ogee-headed niche containing a calvary, with a three-light Perpendicular window with hoodmould above.

The interior is plastered. The nave has a seven-bay arcade with alternate octagonal and lobed pillars, moulded caps and bases, and hoodmoulds to plain moulded arches with small carved heads as stops. Quatrefoil clerestory windows light alternate bays. The roof structure comprises archbraced collar trusses off corbels with a crown post but no longitudinal timber; the aisles have exposed collar rafters with scissor-braced trusses to the chancel, all roofs of 19th-century date. A tall Early English style arch leads to the chancel with leaf capitals; similar arches are found on the south side and from the south aisle to the organ chamber. An old cross-boarded door serves the vestry. An eight-lobed piscina is reset in the south chancel window sill.

The chancel contains a carved reredos of 1878 in stone and alabaster extended as blind arcading across the east wall, with a matching aumbry on the left. The pulpit is a plain six-sided stone example of 1862 with blind quatrefoils above the plinth. An octagonal 19th-century stone font features crosses, symbols of the evangelists, and a dove on the bowl, over trefoil-headed blind arcading on the stem. An older octagonal stone bowl dated 1583 sits on an octagonal stem with royal arms and a splayed base.

The church contains a number of good 18th and early 19th-century wall monuments in the chancel and at the west end of the aisles, including one to T. Sinderby with violin and score in white marble by J. Pearce of Frampton. A 1686 monument is located in the north porch, along with a benefactions board. The churchyard contains a number of good late 17th and 18th-century headstones not separately listed.

The church was restored in 1862 by Medland and Maberley, and again in 1864 and 1876-78.