Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

A Grade I listed parish church at Staple Fitzpaine, of Norman origin with substantial later medieval additions and 19th-century restoration.

The church is built of squared and coursed blue lias with Ham stone dressings and slate roofs behind plain parapets with coped verges. It comprises a three-and-a-half bay aisled nave, west tower, south porch, chancel, and north-east vestry.

The tower, dating to around 1500, is a particularly splendid example similar to those at Kingston St Mary and Isle Abbotts. It is crenellated with three stages. The merlons are pierced with trefoil-headed arches set on a quatrefoil-pierced parapet. Crocketed finials with detached pinnacles and corbelled-out pinnacles occupy the centre of each face. String courses, gargoyles, and set-back buttresses terminating in pinnacles with pinnacles rising between them are features throughout. The bell-openings on the second stage are two 2-light mullioned and transomed openings with Somerset tracery, flanked by pinnacles rising from a string course. The third stage contains a 4-light mullioned and transomed window with a sill supported by angel corbels, and empty crocketed niches with angel corbels. The west face displays a 4-light window above a strongly moulded Tudor arch heading the west door, with decorative spandrels bearing coats of arms (possibly of the Earls of Northumberland, who held the gift of the living). A C19 door occupies the opening below, flanked by niches. A stone spire crowns the north-east stair turret, decorated with crocketed pinnacles, a 4-centred arch doorway, and blind niches.

The south aisle features a 3-light west window, set-back buttresses, and 3-light windows flanking a single-storey gabled porch with coped verges and a moulded arched doorway. The inner door is Norman in origin, with a decorated arch featuring abaci carved with oxen's faces, birds, and palmettes. There are no columns. A C19 ribbed door and a 3-light window at the east end complete the south aisle's features. Two 3-light windows occupy the south wall of the chancel, with a 3-light east window above the set-back buttresses.

The vestry, on the north-east, has a door on its east front and a 2-light north window. A 3-light north window serves the chancel. A 3-light window stands at the east end of the north aisle. Statues set in niches occupy the south-west and north-east corners of the church. Three 3-light windows pierce the north face with stepped buttresses between them, and a 3-light window appears at the west end.

Internally, the walls are built of exposed blue lias rubble. The arcades are standard Perpendicular work with a half bay at the chancel end, a design copied in the north aisle. The chancel arch is pointed and chamfered in two orders. The tower arch is strongly moulded and 4-centred. A chamfered round-arched piscina occupies the chancel. A grotesque figure corbel supporting a statue niche stands in the north-west corner of the north aisle.

The roofs include a restored ceiled wagon roof to the chancel with bosses and wall plate resting on a cavetto-moulded stone cornice; the nave has similar treatment but without the stone cornice. The north aisle has a renewed moulded compartment ceiling to a monopitch roof with angel corbels bearing shields, a design copied in the south aisle. The tower has a 4-panel compartment ceiling.

A restored 2:1:2 bay rood screen, imported from the demolished Bickenhall Church, is Perpendicular in style. The font is also Perpendicular. Four 18th-century slate slabs occupy the sanctuary floor. A kneeling effigy of Rachel Portman, daughter of Henry Portman (died 1632), was also brought from Bickenhall Church, which was demolished in 1849. A convex lias panel to William Crosse of Parke Lodge (died 1702) survives, though the columns, heavy cornice, and weeping putti described by Collinson were destroyed during the 1841 restoration. An oval grey and white marble tablet commemorates Robert Barker (died 1785) and his wife Ann.

The chancel dates to the 14th century. The north aisle was added and the church refenestrated in the 15th century. The south aisle was added later, reusing nave windows. The south porch and vestry date to 1841. The church was reseated and restored in 1894 at the expense of the Rector, the Reverend F B Portman. Prior to this restoration, the church is recorded as having comprised a nave, chancel, north aisle, porch, and south chapel. The roof was renewed in the mid-20th century.

A Norman doorway, now reset in the south aisle, survives from the church's original construction.