Church Of St Peter

RODNEY STOKE

1925/18/83 SCHOOL LANE 29-JAN-87 DRAYCOTT (East side) CHURCH OF ST PETER

II MATERIALS: Of random rubble (known locally as 'Draycott Marble', a dolomitic conglomerate) with freestone dressings. The roof is mainly of banded tiles, with a faceted roof to chancel, some coped verges, and cruciform finials. There is a steeply gabled ashlar bell-cote with two bells over the crossing.

PLAN: Nave, chancel with polygonal apse, transepts, lean-to chancel chapels, small semi-circular vestry.

EXTERIOR: Simple Early English style. The windows are lancets, some in groups of two or three, and the transepts have three-light windows with plate tracery, solid eyes, polychromatic freestone and Dolomitic Conglomerate voussoirs to heads. On the south side is a gabled porch; it has a shafted outer door opening with stiff-leaf foliage, benched flagstone floor, and a plank door with strap hinges.

INTERIOR: Plastered interior with flagstone, tile and encaustic tile floors. The roof of the nave is scissor-braced, whilst the chancel has a wagon roof with gilded decoration. Broad chancel arch on fat short circular piers, caps with stiff leaf foliage. Stained glass to chancel lancets of circa 1861; the remainder of windows have ornamental leaded lights. The font is by William Bruges and is Romanesque in style comprising a square limestone cap with foliage and allegorical figures carved in relief on the sides and a lead-lined bowl. It rests on a truncated column of polished granite with floral crockets to its capital and water-leaf carvings on the base; this stands on a square limestone plinth. Other furnishings include a wrought iron rood screen of 1894, carved stone pulpit, a lectern carved as an eagle, C19 organ, and a neo-Perpendicular reredos of 1903. The rood screen is possibly the work of the Victorian designer George Fellowes Prynne.

HISTORY: The Church of St Peter was built in 1861 to the designs of the architect CE Giles. Research has indicated that the font was designed by William Burges, the renowned Victorian architect. He appears to have been working under the patronage of the Rev. John Augustus Yatman who was the benefactor of several local churches in the area.

SOURCES: R. Dixon and S. Muthesius, Victorian Architecture' (1978), pp 214-16 N. Pevsner,North Somerset and Bristol' (1973), pp 184

SUMMARY OF IMPORTANCE: The Church of St Peter is a competent design in simple Early English style by the architect C.E. Giles. Despite some internal alterations in the late C20, the building is a conservative, but balanced single-phase composition. The historic interest is strengthened by the link with the renowned Victorian architect William Burges who is attributed with designing the large Romanesque font.

Listing NGR: ST4761651274