Church Of St Peter And St Paul

Church of St Peter and St Paul

A church of 14th-century date with 12th-century remains, located in Kings Sutton. The building was restored around 1866 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. It is constructed of coursed limestone rubble with stone slate and lead roofing.

The church comprises a chancel with vestry and organ chamber, a nave with clerestory, north and south aisles with porches, and a west tower with octagonal spire.

The north and south chancel walls are late 12th-century work, retaining a corbel table of carved heads. The chancel has a Perpendicular 4-light east window. Decorated windows in the north and south chancel walls are of 4-lights with reticulated tracery, though the south windows have been renewed. Low side windows with 4-centred heads appear in the south walls, with a priest's doorway to the east. A turret containing stairs to the former rood-loft occupies the angle between the chancel and south aisle. The 19th-century vestry and organ chamber adjoin to the east.

The nave has a battlemented parapet with a sundial at the south-east corner. Clerestory windows of around 1500 contain 2 arched uncusped lights each with square hoods. The roof pitch in the north aisle was lowered around 1500, and the heads of large Decorated windows at the east and west ends were altered at this time. The 5-light west window retains some Decorated tracery but has been reduced in height and given a square hood. The east window has intersecting tracery, altered in the 19th century. A small doorway of around 1500 with a 4-centred head sits below the west window in the north aisle.

The north aisle has a Decorated south-east window of 3-lights with reticulated tracery and a 3-light Perpendicular window to its left. The 15th-century north porch has a parapet with ball finials, probably of around 1832, and includes a datestone with an illegible inscription.

The south aisle contains a large Decorated east window of 5-lights with tracery featuring a wheel and triangles. Other south aisle windows are Decorated with reticulated and flowing tracery. The Perpendicular south porch was originally gabled but now has an 18th-century castellated parapet. Its doorway has a 4-centred arch with quatrefoil spandrels and square hood; a similar doorway serves the south aisle.

The early 15th-century tower comprises 3 stages. The bell openings are 2-lights with transoms and flowing tracery under square hoods, with end stops carved as figures holding musical instruments. The straight parapet features blind quatrefoil tracery and gargoyles. At each corner, pairs of crocketed pinnacles are linked by flying buttresses to the octagonal spire, which has 2-light lucarnes framed by pinnacles. The spire's ridges are ornamented with crockets, and near the apex there is a band of fleur-de-lys.

The 15th-century west porch is crowned with crocketed pinnacles and a square gable containing a canopied niche with a headless statue of the Virgin and Child flanked by kneeling figures. The porch interior has fan-vaulting. The doorway to the nave has a 4-centred arch with quatrefoil spandrels.

Interior: The north and south walls of the chancel are decorated with blank arcading in Norman style. The arcading displays 12th-century shafts with 19th-century arches bearing zig-zag mouldings. The 19th-century piscina and sedilia are modern, though the piscina incorporates re-used 12th-century mouldings. The 14th-century chancel arch has a hood with head stops and 19th-century responds. The chancel roof is 19th-century work.

The north and south nave arcades each contain 3 bays plus a fourth bay forming the base of the tower. The south arcade is late 12th-century work, rebuilt and heightened in the 14th century—evident from the tall proportions and the use of ballflower moulding on one capital. It retains 12th-century round piers with square abaci. The capital of the east pier has scalloped decoration, and that of the north respond displays waterleaf ornament. The unmoulded pointed arches have hoods with nail-head decoration.

The 14th-century north arcade has quatrefoil piers with moulded capitals and double-chamfered arches. Re-used 12th-century fragments appear at the base of two piers, including part of a scalloped capital.

The panelled timber roof in the nave dates from around 1500 and features carved and gilded bosses. A 14th-century piscina with a cusped ogee arch and pinnacles sits in the south aisle. A recess below the south-east window is ornamented with a band of quatrefoils, trefoils, and blank shields.

Panelled timber roofs in both the south and north aisles date from around 1500 and carry carved bosses—one in the south aisle is inscribed with the letter "R", while those in the north aisle bear heraldic shields.

Fittings include a Romanesque font with a roughly-cut bowl. The screen dates from around 1866 by Sir George Gilbert Scott. Pews of around 1842 have carved poppy heads; a wooden tablet in the south aisle records that the re-pewing was architected by D.G. Squirhill. A wood panel carved with 3 pairs of figures in relief, dating from around 1500, is located in the north aisle.

A wall monument in the chancel commemorates Thomas Langton Freke, died 1769, and features a plaster relief of "The Resurrection" with two-thirds life-size figures of Christ holding a banner and an angel trampling on a skeleton, executed in the style of Roubilliac.