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I Location

II General Description

St Peter's is a small church with aisleless nave and chancel and a W tower with a pyramid roof. The nave has 12thc. N and S doorways, the S under a porch dating from 1868, when the nave was rebuilt. The chancel is 13thc. and the tower 14thc. Construction is of stone and pebble rubble. The nave has recently been converted into a church hall by screening it from the chancel and laying a tiled floor. Benches for the parishioners have been installed in the chancel, which already contained choir stalls and the organ. The nave doorways are described below, but the glory of the church is a 12thc relief of St Peter now set into the interior N chancel wall.

III Exterior Features

1. Doorways

(i) S nave doorway

Round headed, two orders with a plain tympanum. The entire doorway has been whitewashed and a light fitted to the tympanum.

First order: plain square jambs supporting the ends of the tympanum.

Second order: detached nook shafts with spiral cable decoration on tall attic bases. Triple scallop capitals, or rather cushions with triple scalloped bells and keels at the angles and plain neckings. The imposts are hollow chamfered with a pronounced bead between face and chamfer.

Dimensions

(ii) N nave doorway

Round headed, two orders with plain tympanum.

First order: the tympanum is of three horizontal blocks supported by roll corbels on plain square jambs.

Second order: En-delit nook shafts on tall attic bases supporting cushion capitals with fluted bells and plain neckings. Hollow chamfered imposts with a pronounced bead between face and chamfer as on the S doorway.

Dimensions

IV Interior Features

5. Interior Decoration

c. Miscellaneous

(i) Relief of St Peter

Set low down on the chancel E wall alongside the altar. St Peter is depicted frontally, dressed as a priest with alb, cincture, chasuble and stole. In his R hand he carries a key and in his L an open book. He is tonsured and has almond-shaped eyes, a damaged nose and a small closed mouth. His hands are oversized, especially his L. His drapery is articulated in parallel folds and vertical hems hang in zigzags. Alongside his head is the inscription PE TR. He stands on the chamfered upper edge of the plinth, which comprises the lower part of the block, and under an incomplete arch with a spiral cable decorated shaft at the L, supporting a cushion capital. The arch itself is segmental and has an angle roll on the intrados. Above it is fictive architecture; a dome with three windows below a tiled roof in the centre flanked by turrets with conical tiled roofs. The L turret has a single round-headed window, while the R is incomplete.

Dimensions

VII History

In 1086 the manor of 3½ hides was held by the Abbot of Ely.

VIII Comments/Opinions

Pevsner strangely describes the relief as a "standing Norman figure of a priest with a book and an aspersorium(?)", although both the key and the inscription are visible in his illustration (12a).

IX Bibliography