Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Cogenhoe

Church with origins in the late 12th century, substantially rebuilt in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries. Restored in 1868 by C. Buckeridge. Built of coursed squared limestone and ironstone with plain-tile roof to the chancel and lead roofs elsewhere. The building comprises a chancel, vestry, aisled nave, south porch and west tower.

The chancel, of early 13th-century date, has a stepped triple lancet east window of 1868 replacement and paired lancets to north and south. A blocked priest's door beneath the south-west window has a Caernarvon-arched head. The vestry to the north, built in 1868 on the foundations of a medieval north chancel chapel, contains a 2-light east window with plate tracery and a chamfered door to the north.

The nave has a 3-bay 15th-century clerestory of 2-light windows with straight heads and ogee-arched lights, beneath a plain stone-coped parapet with tall thin pinnacles at the east angles. The north aisle contains a 3-light north-east window with straight head and Decorated tracery of 1868, a 2-light north-west window with Decorated tracery of similar date, and a 3-light west window with Perpendicular tracery. A late 12th-century north doorway has a round-arched head with thin chamfer.

The south aisle has a 17th-century east window at high level with moulded stone mullion and jambs and wood lintel. A 2-light south-east window features Reticulated tracery and hood mould with label stops. A 2-light south-west window displays Decorated-style tracery of 1868, and a 2-light west window has Geometrical tracery of similar date. A scratch dial appears on the bottom of the left jamb of the south-east window, and a blocked 1-light window to the left at lower level has a cusped ogee-arched head. A late 12th-century south door has a single-stepped pointed arch with shafts and scalloped capitals.

The 15th-century south porch has a double-chamfered doorway with continuous outer chamfer and polygonal responds innermost, a small blocked 1-light window above, and small ogee-arched 1-light windows to the east and west sides.

The tall 3-stage west tower has a hollow-chamfered and wave-moulded west door with 4-centred head, shields to spandrels and many-moulded rectangular surround. Above this is a 3-light window with 4-centred head and Perpendicular tracery. The middle stage contains a square west window with cusped diagonal cross tracery and chamfered surround, and a 1-light south window. The high bell chamber has 2-light openings with transoms and deep hollow chamfer. The tower features diagonal offset buttresses and a battlemented parapet with corner pinnacles. Plain stone-coped parapets finish the porch and aisles. Doors and windows generally have hood moulds except for the blocked priest's door, the square tower window and some minor 1-light windows.

Internally, the chancel has full-height blank arcading framing the windows, with triple shafts, simple moulded capitals, square moulded abaci and chamfered arches. The middle shafts have fillets, and those framing the east window have shaft rings. A double-chamfered arch to the north-west leads to the former chapel, with moulded corbels innermost. The north wall contains a group of two aumbries with a pointed trefoil-headed niche above at the middle.

The chancel arch has pairs of shafts framing a hollow chamfer, with moulded capitals to the shafts flanking the heads at the top of the chamfers, and a double-chamfered arch. The nave has 3-bay arcades with square limestone piers, attached shafts to the angles, hollow chamfers to the sides and moulded capitals framing the heads and shields. The piers are of limestone with double-chamfered arches, whilst the responds are of ironstone. A Perpendicular-style roof with arch-braced ties sits on wall-posts supported on carved stone head corbels. The tower arch is tall with double chamfer and polygonal responds innermost, which carry moulded capitals and brattishing.

Stained-glass windows in the chancel to the south date to 1887, with a later stained-glass east window also present. The church contains monuments including a cross-legged knight believed to be Nicholas de Cogenhoe, who died in 1281.