Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

This is a church of late 13th-century origins, but predominantly of the 14th and early 15th centuries, built in regular coursed ironstone with moulded plinths; the chancel incorporates some rubble. The building has lead roofs, though the chancel roof is plastic. It comprises an aisled nave, chancel, west tower, south porch and north vestries, and displays Decorated and Early Perpendicular architectural styles.

The nave is of four bays with five-bay aisles that embrace the tower, and the chancel is of three bays. The Early Perpendicular tower has four stages and substantial diagonal buttresses. The west door is a ribbed double-leaf arch set in a moulded doorway with fleurons and a crocketed ogee hood mould, though it is badly eroded. A small moulded panel sits to its left. A moulded string course runs across the tower face and is continued across the buttresses. Above this is a three-light window with moulded arch and jambs, flanked by small moulded ogee niches. The upper stages have simple moulded string courses. Bell openings contain two traceried lights with transom and hood mould. The parapet is crenellated with panelled and crocketed pinnacles.

The south porch is Early Perpendicular, with diagonal buttresses of two offsets and a low pitched roof with gable and side parapet. An elaborately moulded arch frames the entrance. The east side of the porch has a trefoiled lancet; the west side has a two-light traceried window. The south door is ribbed and double-leafed, set in an elaborate Early Perpendicular moulded doorway.

Both aisles have a string course at sill level. The south aisle has a moulded parapet with a gargoyle near its east end. Two two-light south windows and three-light east windows have reticulated tracery. The north and south aisles each have a three-light Perpendicular west window with cinqfoiled lights, straight head and hood mould. The north aisle has gabled diagonal buttresses; the east buttress contains a niche with nodding ogee arch. Its parapet features an alternating frieze of heads and ballflowers. A north door between the two westernmost windows is blocked inside but retains a string course carried over as a hood mould, with a plank door and decorative strap hinges. Three Decorated north windows have hood moulds with head stops.

The nave has moulded parapets throughout. An Early Perpendicular clerestory consists of three four-light windows with cusped lights and hood moulds.

The chancel has a square-headed south doorway with a plank door, inserted below a two-light Perpendicular window. To its left is a late 13th-century two-light low side window with plate tracery; to the right is a three-light Decorated window. An Early Perpendicular four-light east window displays eight cusped lights in two tiers, with moulded arch and jambs.

The north vestries have a three-light Perpendicular north window and a three-light Decorated east window with ogee arch, hood mould with head stops.

Interior

The interior has a wide nave and aisles with a tall, wide four-bay Early Perpendicular arcade. The piers have four main and four subsidiary shafts with broad fillets, and are topped by elaborately moulded arches, bases and capitals. Hood moulds feature angel stops; head stops appear to the aisles. The Perpendicular roof has head corbels.

A tall, elaborately moulded Transitional tower arch with head stops is flanked by two heads carved in the wall above. The lower part of this arch is blocked; the upper part has a balustrade with turned balusters. The aisles have blind triple-chamfered tower arches; the south aisle arch has a hood mould. The south aisle has a Perpendicular roof with moulded tie beams.

Three sedilia and an adjoining piscina have detached shafts with fillets, moulded arches and hood moulds with fragments of dog-tooth ornament. A now-blocked piscina has a simple ogee arch and square hood mould. The north aisle has a lean-to roof and contains two moulded corbels in the north wall.

A triple-chamfered chancel arch without imposts separates the nave from the chancel. The chancel has a king-post roof with moulded purlins and Transitional-style head corbels; the eastern roof truss is filled with Gothic openwork. The north wall retains remains of two blocked round arches and a small two-centred door with hood mould. A small piscina and a 14th-century stone shelf on a good head corbel are also present. A squint from the west vestry allows views into the chancel. The south wall has an ogee-headed piscina and a stone seat below the easternmost window. The west vestry contains a small piscina or holy water stoup with a trefoiled arch and semi-octagonal shaft.

Fittings

An octagonal stone font has panels of shields and fleurs de lys with carved foliage. Its painted wooden cover is dated 1662. Seventeenth-century aisle west screens have moulded muntins and openwork tops with diagonally-set square uprights and spikes; doors have H-L hinges. A simple moulded stone reredos contains 17th-century wood panels. A late 17th or early 18th-century panelled pulpit with back panel and tester stands with pews and box pews arranged in tiers at the west end. Eighteenth-century altar rails have vase and column balusters. An aumbry with a carved and moulded wood door inscribed "John Ward Gave This 1627" is set in the chancel north wall. Royal arms appear in the tower arch.

Monuments

The north aisle floor contains a brass to William Makepiece (died 1584) and his wife with small figures and daughters below. A brass in the chancel floor commemorates William Smarte, rector, who died in 1468, shown as a small figure. A wall monument records Edward Bathurst, died 1668.