Parish Church of St Peter

Parish Church of St Peter

This is a large aisled church in the Perpendicular style, built entirely in the 15th century with significant restoration and additions in the late 19th century. The building is constructed of coursed liassic limestone with random blocks of pink sandstone.

The church consists of a nave and chancel with north and south aisles, a three-staged west tower, a south porch, and a vestry on the north side of the chancel added in the late 19th century. The chancel was rebuilt at the same time. The roofline is distinctive, with a gabled slate roof to the nave and chancel, each topped with decorative cross finials, while the aisles and porch have flat roofs with parapets. The nave steps up from the chancel and has a steeply pitched roof.

The south and north aisles are each lit by five three-light windows with hoodmoulds and square label stops—three to the south side and one at each end. These windows feature cusped tracery in the Perpendicular style. The south aisle is supported by four equally spaced staged buttresses, while the north aisle has an angled buttress at each end. The chancel's east window is three-light with debased Perpendicular tracery above. The south side of the chancel has two 19th-century windows in Perpendicular style with a central narrow priests' doorway between them. Three-light cusped windows with Perpendicular tracery above are found on the aisles and tower.

The south porch is a substantial two-storey structure dating from the 15th century with a flat roof. It is decorated with crocketted finials and gargoyles beneath the parapet. The south doorway is pointed and complexly moulded with a deeply projecting hoodmould and simple stops, set beneath a relieving arch. Above it is a 19th-century lancet with an arched hoodmould. The inner doorway is similar but features large square label stops beneath a pink and white limestone voussoired arch. A simple niche is set into the wall above this doorway, now empty. The porch's 19th-century boarded roof is embattled with a wallplate and transverse ribs springing from the wall. These ribs are supported on five carved corbel heads to each side depicting angels, a king, grotesques, and a bishop—one has been replaced.

The west tower is highly decorative in West Country style, rising in three stages with five staged diagonal buttresses at each corner, each topped with crocketted pinnacles. The parapet is crenellated with blind tracery and crocketted corner finials. Within the central crenellation of each face stands a carved figure of a saint, possibly one of the Apostles. A polygonal stair turret rises from the northeast corner, extending above the parapet and similarly crenellated with matching blind tracery. The stringcourse beneath the parapet contains two gargoyles on each face. The stair turret has five stairlights. Louvred 15th-century belfry windows open to each face of the tower. The south face has two 19th-century lancets and the north side has a single matching one. The west window is 15th-century with a deeply projecting hoodmould and square label stops. Both the west doorway and window have naturalistically carved leaves on the outer reveal. A small 19th-century vestry sits on the north side of the chancel, lit on the east side.

The interior is a fine, lofty space in High Perpendicular style. The four-bay arcades feature compound piers with complexly moulded arches and capitals decorated with a variety of naturalistic foliage including vines, roses, foliate patterns, and a green man on the central pier of the south side. The wide, pointed chancel arch is complexly moulded but has been crudely hacked off on the west side to accommodate the former rood screen. A rood stair survives to the north of the pulpit, with a pointed chamfered door surround and a cusped piscina to its right. The nave roof is of hammerbeam type, restored but possibly originally 15th-century, supported on a series of twelve timber brackets springing from the wall. These rest upon stone corbels carved in the form of heads, some restored, possibly depicting the twelve disciples. The chancel roof is a 19th-century pseudo hammerbeam, as is the flat boarded roof of the aisles. The tower arch is tall, narrow, and complexly moulded. The pulpit is modern, while the furnishings are 19th-century, including a three-bay pink alabaster reredos with pinnacles and crocketted finials. A 15th-century polygonal font stands to the west of the south door, set on a base decorated with blind tracery and complete with lead lining.