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St Peter, Birley, Herefordshire

Location
(52°10′34″N, 2°47′59″W)
Birley
SO 454 534
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Herefordshire
now Herefordshire
medieval Hereford
now Hereford
medieval St Peter
now St Peter
  • George Zarnecki
  • Ron Baxter
  • George Zarnecki
  • Ron Baxter
16 May 1989 (GZ); 19 March 2024 (RB)

Please use this link to cite this page - https://www.crsbi.ac.uk/view-item?i=4132.

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Feature Sets
Description

Nave with a plain S doorway (not recorded but possibly 12thc.), 13thc. chancel with a 14thc. arch, early 13thc. W tower with a shingled bell-storey and pyramid roof. Only the nave is probably of a 12thc. date but, as the RCHME (3:15) stated, 'there is little evidence of this'. The font is the only certain evidence of the existence of a Romanesque church here.

History

The manors of Birley were in the possession of two famous Marcher families, those of Lacy and Mortimer but, of course, they were run by tenants who, in 1086, were Godmund (tenant of Roger de Lacy) and Richard (that of Ralph de Mortimer).

Benefice of Canon Pyon with King's Pyon, Birley and Wellington.

Features

Furnishings

Fonts

Comments/Opinions

RCHME (3:16) suggested a late 12thc. date for the font but this is questionable and a more likely date is the first half of the 12thc. A font as modest as in Birley church was due to a patron who was not rich and not very sophisticated. On the other hand, it should be borne in mind that there are many fonts in Herefordshire churches which are quite plain and so, even more modest than that at Birley.

Bibliography

A. Brooks and N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Herefordshire. New Haven and London 2012, 104-05.

Historic England Listed Building, English Heritage Legacy ID: 149783

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England: Herefordshire. Harmondsworth, 1963, 74.
RCHME, An Inventory of the Historical Monuments in Herefordshire, 3: North-west, 1934, 15-16.