Church Of St Peter And St Paul

The Church of St Peter and St Paul is an Anglican parish church. The tower is late 15th century, while the remainder of the church was rebuilt in 1869 by Henry Hall. The church is constructed of local stone, squared and dressed with Doulting or Ham stone, and has plain clay tiled roofs banded with scallop tiles, set between stepped coped gables. Its four-cell plan includes a three-bay chancel, a four-bay nave, and small north and south transepts, as well as a small north-east vestry, a south porch, and a west tower.

The chancel has a plinth, cill mould, small offset corner buttresses, and an east window of three lights with geometric tracery and a headstop arched label. The south side has three cusped lancets with headstop labels, and the north side features a lean-to vestry and matching porch. The north transept has half-height buttresses and an oval flue at the crown of its gable, with a two-light traceried window and a headstop label. The south transept mirrors this design but lacks the flue. The nave has cusped lancets with quatrefoils over, set under arched labels with headstops. A south porch matches the chancel front and has floriated capitals on corbels; the inner doorway is simply moulded.

The tower is of two stages, with a plinth, string courses, corner gargoyles on the upper stage, and battlemented parapets topped with simple obelisk corner pinnacles. There are angled corner buttresses. The lower stage is otherwise plain except for the west face, which has a blocked doorway with a chamfered pointed arch and label, and two-light windows all around, fitted with baffles. A further rectangular window with a hood mould is on the south side. A square stair turret with offsets rises almost to full height on the north-east corner.

The interior is entirely 19th century. The chancel features an open raised-cruck type roof frame and a wide 12th-century style chancel arch with richly carved capitals and corbels to hall-shafts. There is an elaborate carved rere-arch to the east window and imposts to other windows. It also contains encaustic tile and carved stone reredos, and choir stalls in character. The nave has a roof with arched-braced collar trusses. The south transept has some 18th-century fielded panelling, which, along with the matching pulpit, was moved from Sherborne Abbey to this church around 1921. The font is an octagonal bowl on a circular shaft and base, possibly 12th century, though now somewhat damaged. A hatchment from 1738 is on the north wall. Stained glass in the east and west windows is by Powell. Several 18th-century memorial tablets are in the tower, and carved fragments, thought to be Saxon, are built into the south porch wall.

The church's first known rector was in the 13th century.