Church Of St Mary And St Peter

The Church of St Mary and St Peter is an Anglican parish church largely dating to the 13th and 14th centuries, with substantial restoration in 1858 by John Norton. It is constructed of rubble with slate roofs to coped gables. The church comprises a large west tower, a nave, a chancel, a south porch, a north aisle, and a vestry.

The plain two-stage tower features clamp buttresses to half height, and a stair turret within the south-west clamp extending to the full height. It has small lancet windows on the south and west sides and a two-light, four-centred, louvred belfry opening. The two-storey south porch, rebuilt in the 19th century, has two-light Kentish tracery over the doorway. The inner door displays colonnettes and a rebuilt 13th-century one with double roll moulding. The south side of the nave has a two-light 14th-century window with an ogee head and an eccentric double-wave hood, followed by a two-light 19th-century window and a three-light 15th-century window. The chancel features a one-light 14th-century window matching the nave window, another two-light 14th-century window, and a priest’s door with a three-centred head and double roll moulding. The east window is a three-light C19 Decorated style window set between clamp buttresses. The north aisle has a three-light late 13th-century window, followed by three cusped lancets grouped to the east end, a simple pointed doorway to the right, and a three-light 14th-century design on the west wall, which also incorporates a boiler flue. Two rainwater heads are dated 1858.

Inside, the tower floor is paved with memorial slabs. The lancets have deeply splayed semi-circular rere arches. Donations boards refer to a ten-shilling annual sum from Mrs Bridget Madocke for the maintenance of a family monument in the churchyard. The nave has a five-bay arch-braced roof with wind-bracing, a heavy arch-brace at the chancel arch, and a four-bay, plain chamfered 13th-century arcade. The north aisle has a pointed barrel roof, three corbels on the nave arcade positioned 500mm below plate level, and a rood-loft opening unseen from the nave. A cusped piscina is located in the east wall, alongside two small square glass panels. The chancel roof is compound arch-brace and barrel with wind-braces. To the north is a flat arch to the organ loft/vestry, and one bay of arcade mirroring that of the nave, leading to the sanctuary. A small window by the pulpit contains glass dating to 1310, featuring a coat of arms of John ap Adam, including the date MCCCX (1310). Another window in the south-west of the nave depicts the Seys family of Stroat House. The font is a round lead bowl of the 12th century, one of six such in Gloucestershire, with figures and initials within an arcade of twelve arches, set on an 18th-century carved round base. Pews, fittings, and most of the glass are from the 19th century.