Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

Church. The building dates from 1777–80 and was substantially repaired, remodelled and extended between 1862 and 1866 by the architect G. Gilbert Scott in the late 13th-century Geometrical style. The church is constructed of limestone ashlar with a copper roof to the nave and graded slate roofs to the porch, chancel and chancel aisle.

The church comprises a chancel, north chancel aisle, aisled nave, south porch and west tower.

The chancel is 3 bays and contains a 5-light window of sumptuous Geometrical tracery with a large circle to the head filled with 7 sexfoiled circles. The central cinquefoil-headed light meets the circle, with outer lights grouped in sub-arches featuring cinquefoiled circles to the head, Y-tracery and cinquefoils above trefoil-headed lights. The bottom of the lights is filled with square sunk panels containing the letters Alpha and Omega at the outermost, then Instruments of Passion and the Chi-Rho symbol, with the arms of St Peter and St Paul to the centre. Below this window is a foundation stone inscribed: "THIS FOUNDATION STONE OF THE CHANCEL ERECTED BY RICHARD PLANTAGENET CAMPBELL GRENVILLE THIRD DUKE OF BUCKINGHAM & CHANDOS WAS LAID BY CAROLINE DUCHESS OF BUCKINGHAM & CHANDOS JULY 6TH 1865." In the gable above is the ducal arms in a large sunk panel with a foliated gable cross. The chancel has 2-light windows to the north and south with sexfoils to the head, those either side of the central south window set in foliated circles. The 2-bay chancel aisle has 3-light east windows with encircled quatrefoil and trefoils to the head, and 2-light north windows with cinquefoil-headed lights and encircled cinquefoils to the head. The north door has a keel and roll-moulded head dying into sunk chamfered jambs.

The nave is 7 bays with aisles under one roof and features two tiers of windows: small paired lancets below, then 2-light windows with cinquefoiled circles to the heads. The south door in the porch has double-leaf doors with ornamental wrought-iron hinges and 2 orders of shafts.

The porch has a doorway with 3 orders of shafts, a many-moulded head and low double-leaf wrought-iron gates. Paired niches above the doorway have cusped heads and contain statues of St Peter and St Paul. The porch has 1-light windows to the east and west sides with a 2-bay roof on stone wall shafts bearing arch-braced collar trusses.

A polygonal gallery stair turret stands at the left angle of the nave, featuring 1-light windows with cusped heads, nailhead ornament to the corbel table and a gabled ridged stone roof with foliage bosses to the gables.

The 3-stage tower has a 19th-century west door with 2 orders of shafts and a many-moulded head. Above the door is a convex shield with the Swan of Buckingham in relief. The tower has paired lancet windows above with large nailhead ornament and a blank quatrefoil to the central spandrel. Two tiers of similar, smaller windows appear to the north and south sides. The middle stage has cast-iron clock faces, and the 3-light bellchamber windows have intersecting tracery and 4-centred heads, with a corbel table of arches on balls below. The tower has a battlement parapet with crocketed pinnacles to the angles and a recessed stone spire of octagonal plan with a ball finial and weathervane. The tower has diagonal offset buttresses and deep hollow-chamfered string courses.

The church has a chamfered plinth and offset buttresses to the nave, porch and chancel, those to the nave and chancel with gabled tops. Similar buttresses appear between each bay, with bar stop-chamfered angles, stiff leaf foliage carving to the cornices and foliage bosses to the gables. The nave has solid parapets pierced with quatrefoils, while the chancel and aisle have arcaded parapets with crocketed pinnacles to the gable end of the chancel. All doors and windows have hoodmoulds with foliage and head label stops.

Interior

The chancel has a 2-bay arcade with shafted piers to the north aisle, which houses an organ chamber and vestry. The chancel contains a piscina with keeled and roll mouldings and a cusped head. Three-seat sedilia feature cinquefoil-headed arches on shafts with moulded bases and capitals. A timber lierne vault with 20th-century polychrome decoration springs from long wall shafts. The chancel arch has attached shafts and nailhead ornament to the moulded capitals and dogtooth ornament to the many-moulded head.

The nave has 7-bay arcades with circular piers of black fossiliferous marble alternating with limestone piers diagonally set, all with attached shafts to the angles. The marble piers stand on chamfered octagonal stone plinths with moulded stone bases, mid-rings and moulded capitals incorporating corbels with pendant mouldings. The stone piers stand on octagonal chamfered plinths with moulded bases, mid-rings and capitals. Double keel-moulded and chamfered arches span between the piers. A 19th-century timber quadripartite vault with ridge ribs and foliage bosses springs from the piers, ingeniously fitted below the original 18th-century roof, which has massive timber trusses designed to provide clearance to a former elliptical plaster vault. The ridge rib of the timber vault undulates to clear these trusses. The vault is probably of redwood.

A west gallery stands on octagonal fossiliferous marble piers with moulded octagonal stone bases and capitals, chamfered and keel-moulded arches dying into octagonal stilts, and a continuous hoodmould. Six-panel, double-leaf doors lead to the tower. A re-used hollow-chamfered stone doorway with a Tudor-arched head in the tower leads to the stair.

Fittings

The church contains an oak reredos of 1904 by John Oldrid Scott with painted panels of the Nativity and angels. Prayer desks in the Lady Chapel incorporate late 15th- and early 16th-century pew ends from the old church with poppy heads and complex blank tracery panels. Another pew end dated 1626, now part of a reading desk, bears a coat of arms and scrollwork. An oak pulpit on a tapering stone base features saints' heads in circular medallions and an eagle book rest. An oak lectern with similar medallions to the sides of the book slope is supported on lions' feet with miniature buttresses.

A splendid early 18th-century brass chandelier features 2 tiers of 9 arms and a globe inscribed "THE GIFT OF BROWNE WILLIS ESQ MEMBER OF PARLIAMENT ANNO DOMINI 1705" with a gilded dove on top. A charity board with a gilded frame is dated 1685. A former altarpiece in the gallery, presented by the Marquis of Buckingham, is an oil on canvas copy of Raphael's Transfiguration purchased in Italy. Hanoverian Royal Arms appear on the timber gallery front as carved and painted wood.

Stained-glass windows by Clayton and Bell include a notable east window of 1877 depicting the Te Deum.

The church contains marble and brass wall monuments of the early to late 19th century.

Historical Note

The church was originally built to replace a medieval parish church at the other end of Church Street. The tower remains largely unaltered from the 18th century, and the nave retains its original 18th-century structure. Buttresses were added after 1862 when serious cracks appeared in the walls. Their foundations were taken down 14 feet to bedrock below the medieval castle motte upon which the church was constructed. The church was largely paid for by the Earl Temple of Stowe. Repairs and the chancel were paid for by his descendant, the last Duke of Buckingham.