Church Of Saint Peter

Church of Saint Peter

The Church of Saint Peter at Weston Favell is a parish church of 11th and 12th century origin, substantially rebuilt and restored during the 19th and 20th centuries. The medieval fabric is constructed of ironstone rubble, while 19th century work is of coursed Duston stone alternating with rubble. The vestry is of coursed stone blocks. The building has slate roofs, with the nave stripped internally and the chancel plastered and painted.

The church comprises a nave with a western tower, north aisle, and north and south porches. The chancel contains a north chapel, north vestry, and parish office complex. The chancel and tower sit at a slightly south-southeast angle to the nave.

The exterior presents a small church with a spireless tower, extensively restored in the 19th century and extended in the 20th. The chancel has a restored triple lancet in its east wall and stepped lancets in the south wall. An early 12th century south chancel door is round-headed with two plain unchamfered orders. The north chancel chapel was added in 1881 but incorporates a lancet in its east wall from the former north wall of the nave. The north parish rooms and vestry complex were built in 1972 to replace a 19th century boiler house. The north aisle, reconstructed in 1881 on the site of a former medieval aisle demolished in the 18th century, features pointed lancet windows with hood moulds connected to form a string course. The north door was assembled in 1881 from 12th century fragments and has one order of shafts with scalloped capitals. The north porch dates from 1892. The south wall of the nave has pairs of lancets from 1881, though the remainder of the fabric is of indeterminate date and may be late or post-medieval. The south porch, probably added in the 17th century and restored in the 19th, has a straight-headed outer opening and a sundial in the gable. The south door, with its depressed four-centred arch, is probably 17th century, as is the door itself. The three-stage west tower has large added buttresses to north and south. A blocked round-headed doorway in the west face, probably of the 11th century and possibly pre-Conquest, is visible. Above it stands a double lancet, and the belfry has paired lights of the early 13th century beneath a continuous hood mould. The parapet features a corbel table, and a pyramidal roof replaces a spire that fell in 1725. The 20th century extension is executed in contrasting austere style but also in ironstone.

The interior in its present form is largely a product of 19th century restorations and alterations. The three-bay north arcade, built in 1881, has round shafts with moulded capitals in 13th century style. The high, wide, round-headed chancel arch of two chamfered orders on moulded capitals was rebuilt in 1869. The east window has 13th century jamb shafts. The north vestry and parish rooms complex open from the chancel through two 19th century arches. The tower arch comprises three chamfered orders with a hood mould on jambs of two orders, retaining traces of decorative painting. To the north of the tower arch is a straight-headed opening with a timber lintel. The scar of an earlier nave roof is visible on the east face of the tower above the tower arch. The roofs are of 19th century date.

Principal fixtures include a 13th century straight-headed aumbry in the chancel east wall and a 13th century trefoiled piscina in the chancel south wall. A 15th century font features an octagonal panelled bowl. A 17th century oak pulpit on a modern base retains the original hour-glass stand. Royal arms of George III are displayed. The vestry contains a needlework panel of 1698 representing the Last Supper. A screen in the tower arch by A A J Marshman dates from 1971. Several 17th and 18th century monuments are present, including brass floor plates to Elizabeth, wife of Francis Hervey (died 1642), and Mary, wife of William Hervey (died 1645), together with 18th century wall tablets. The floor slab formerly marking the burial place of James Hervey (died 1758) has been placed upright in the chancel.

The earliest surviving fabric is the probably 11th century base of the tower, and the western part of the chancel dates to the early 12th century, indicating that the nave had achieved its present length by then. Fragments of round column shafts discovered when the north aisle was built in 1881 suggest that the medieval north aisle was constructed in the late 12th or early 13th century. The upper part of the tower also dates to the 13th century, and the spire that fell in the 18th century was probably added in the 14th century. Fragments of 15th century window tracery found in 1881 suggest the church was remodelled at that date. The north aisle was demolished and the north nave wall rebuilt following the fall of the spire in 1725. The south nave was also rebuilt at some point in the post-medieval period, perhaps in the 17th century (the date of the south door) or early 18th century. The pyramidal cap on the tower is also early 18th century, as the spire was never rebuilt. The church was refurnished in 1844, when galleries were removed. The chancel was restored in 1851, and in 1869 the nave was reroofed, the chancel arch rebuilt, and the south porch restored. Further 19th century work included the north aisle of 1881 designed by Matthew Henry Holding and the north porch of 1892. The church was again restored in 1925. The north vestry was added in 1969-71 to designs by A A J Marshman of Marshman, Warren and Taylor.

During the 17th and 18th centuries, the rectory was held almost exclusively by members of the Hervey family, later known as the Hervey Knight family. The most notable was James Hervey (died 1758), whose devotional work Meditations Amongst the Tombs, published in 1747, achieved wide readership in the 18th and 19th centuries.