St Peter and St Paul, Chacombe, Northamptonshire

I Location

Site Location: Chacombe
National Grid Reference: SP 491 440
County: traditional: Northamptonshire
now: Northamptonshire
Diocese: medieval: Lincoln
now: Peterborough from 1539
Dedication: medieval: St Peter 1557
now (or name of monument): St Peter and St Paul
Type of building/monument: Parish church

II General Description

: Exterior from S

: Interior to E

The church has a W tower, aisled and clerestoreyed nave and chancel. The tower has three storeys and a battlemented parapet with diagonal buttresses and windows pointing to a 15thc. date. The nave arcades, of three bays, date from c.1300 and the clerestorey from the 14thc. The nave has N and S doorways, the S under a porch. The chancel windows point to an early 14thc. date. Construction is of rubble and coursed limestone with banding in the chancel. Nothing of the fabric predates the 13thc., but there is a 12thc. font, described below.

V Furnishings

1. Fonts

(i)

: Font from SW

: Font bowl from S

At W end of S arcade, alongside pier 2. The bowl is a slightly convex tub, distinctly oval in plan, and decorated with 16 bays of intersecting round-headed arcading in low relief. The shafts are flat without bases, capitals are depicted as multi-fluted, and the arch profiles are flat. Above the arcade is a double-roll rim, the lower roll carved with cable ornament. The bowl stands on a short drum with an angle roll, and this on another of the same design but bigger, and this on a step. The bowl is unlined and the rim much repaired.

Dimensions

h. of bowl	0.56 m
overall h. (not including step)	0.90 m
ext. diameter at rim (N-S)	0.65
ext. diameter at rim (E-W)	0.71
int. diameter at rim (N-S)	0.54
int. diameter at rim (E-W)	0.58

VII History

Chacombe was held by Godfrey from the Bishop of Lincoln in 1086. No church was recorded at that time. A priory of Augustinian canons was founded at Chacombe c.1185, but neither its exact site nor its relation, if any, to the present church has been satisfactorily clarified.

Benefice of Middleton Cheney with Chacombe.

VIII Comments/Opinions

IX Bibliography

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Northamptonshire. Harmondsworth 1961, rev. B. Cherry 1973, 146.