Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

This church dates from the 13th to 17th centuries, with substantial Victorian alterations: reseating and reflooring in 1886, partial restoration in 1897, and further restoration in 1912. It is built of coursed ironstone rubble with ironstone dressings and lead roofs.

The building comprises a chancel, north chancel chapel, aisled nave, north and south porches, and a west tower.

The chancel is 2 bays long. Its east window is a 5-light opening with late 19th or early 20th-century intersecting tracery. To the south is a blocked priest's door with an ogee-arched head and continuous wave moulding, a 1-light low-side window with a cusped head, and 3-light windows with cinquefoil-headed lights and intersecting tracery. To the north is a blocked window with a wave-moulded stone surround. The chancel has a chamfered plinth, a string course at sill level, offset lateral buttresses to the east end, and a plain stone-coped parapet to the south only. All windows and the door have hood moulds.

The north chancel chapel continues the line of the north aisle and contains a blocked low-side window to the north-east with a straight head and chamfered stone surround, and a 3-light window to the north with a straight head, wave-moulded stone mullions, leaded panes, and hood mould.

The nave has a plain stone-coped parapet. The aisles contain 17th-century 3-light round-arched mullion windows with cut spandrels and hood moulds, and plain stone-coped parapets. There is an offset buttress between the north aisle and chapel, and a low buttress at the west angle of the north aisle.

The south entrance has 6-panel double-leaf doors with a round trefoiled head under a blank round arch and hood mould. The south porch has a doorway with polygonal responds, a wave-moulded arch, and hood mould. It contains 2-light windows to the east and west with ogee-arched lights, straight heads, and chamfered stone surrounds; the western window has a hood mould. A small blocked window sits above the porch doorway. The north door is chamfered with a hood mould and a 6-panel door, set within a 19th-century gabled porch.

The 3-stage tower has a many-moulded west door. Above this is a 2-light window with cinquefoil-headed lights and a quatrefoil to the head. The middle stage has 1-light windows with cusped heads. The bell-chamber stage contains 2-light Decorated openings. All windows and the door have hood moulds. The tower has offset diagonal buttresses and battlemented parapets.

Interior

The chancel contains a fine piscina and 3-seat sedilia, all with ogee heads and crocketed hood moulds. The piscina has blank flowing tracery to its head. The sedilia have fleurons to a continuous chamfered surround, cinquefoil-headed lights, and blank shields to the spandrels. An aumbry with a pair of pointed arches is also present. The arch to the chapel has polygonal responds and a double-chamfered arch, as does the similar chancel arch.

The nave has arcades with two bays. The north arcade has one octagonal pier and one circular pier; the latter has stiff-leaf carving to its capital and chamfered and wave-moulded arches. The south arcade has octagonal piers and single-chamfered arches. The roof is Perpendicular with tie beams, much renewed.

A plain circular tub font with a conical wooden cover and ball finial is present. An early 19th-century Gothick communion table stands at the end of the north aisle. A fragment of medieval wall painting depicting the upper halves of female figures survives against the west side of the west pier of the south arcade. Late 19th-century stained glass windows light the chancel to the south. Four hatchments, painted in oil on canvas, are displayed.

Monuments

A chest tomb with a rhyming inscription on a limestone base and a black marble ledger stone with indents of brasses commemorates Richard Ouseley (died 1599) and family. A monument to Sir Samuel Jones (died 1672) and his wife Mary consists of black and white marble with large kneeling figures on the base with inscription, flanked by Ionic columns with a broken segmental pediment framing a cartouche of the arts; this is attributed to William Stanton. A marble wall monument by William Cox Senior commemorates Sir Charles Wake (died 1769), featuring an apron, Corinthian pilasters of veined marble, and a winged skull surmounted by a canopy above the inscription. A wall monument to Isla Campbell (died 1837, aged 6 weeks) frames a soft paste porcelain model of the dead child in a niche behind glass. Numerous other 19th and 20th-century marble wall monuments to members of the Wake family are present throughout the church.