Goodworth Clatford is located in N Hampshire, 4km S of Andover. St Peter’s church stands E of the village, on the left side of the River Anton. The chancel and nave are covered by a single roof. The nave is flanked by aisles with wide E bays, thought to represent a former transept. The main entrance, through the S porch, opens into the S aisle. The N aisle terminates, to the E, in an organ chamber and vestry. A bell tower topped by a spire projects from the W end of the nave. Church rooms were erected on the N side of the building in 1995-96, to a design by Sarum Partnership. The S transept arch and S arcade date from the late 12thc. The tower, perhaps built c.1540 with stone from Wherwell Priory, contains numerous reused carved fragments of 12thc. date but only those on the lower level have been recorded (the bell chamber could not be accessed).

In 1086 (Domesday Survey) the small settlement of Goodworth Clatford belonged to the Wherwell Priory, a Benedictine nunnery located 2km. SE. The priory was damaged during the Anarchy and repaired by the abbess, Mathilda de Bailleul, after 1173. Its buildings were demolished after surrendering to the Crown in 1539, and a manor house was erected on the site. The idea that the W tower of Goodworth Clatford was built c.1540 with stone from Wherwell Priory was current by 1886 (The Antiquary, October 1886, 172), but some writers continued to maintain that that the tower was built c.1340 (see Comment).

The church of Goodworth Clatford certainly existed by c.1180, when the S aisle was added. Shortly after this the original chancel was brought into the nave and a transept was created. Any projection this may have had to N and S would have been eliminated when the aisles were widened in the 15thc. The chancel and N aisle date from the 13thc. The organ chamber was added c.1860 and the S porch in 1872. The vestry is also Victorian.

The chevron blocks associated with the W tower are rectangular but could have been trimmed. They are, however, unusually large for voussoirs and contain more than one unit of design per block. Their origin has proved controversial.

When the Hampshire Field Club & Archaeological Society visited Goodworth Clatford in 1886, Canon Collier reported ‘a tradition that on the destruction of the priory of Wherwell . . . the old materials from that place were brought to Clatford, which would account for the many carved stones worked into the interior of the tower’ (The Antiquary, October 1886, 172). N. Nisbet, addressing the same society in 1899, put forward an alternative suggestion, that the stones came from the original chancel arch (Hampshire Independent, 29 July 1899, 7).

In 1911, the VCH considered the tower to have been built c.1340, noting: ‘It may have replaced one of earlier date and contains a great many stones worked with late 12th-century ornament. In the bell-chamber there are a number of fragments of this date . . . belonging to the jambs of a doorway or arch.’ A more detailed description followed: 'The walling in the middle of the tower has a great many stones carved with zigzag ornament and a few with diaper work. In the bell-chamber are several other worked stones, including two pieces of a round attached shaft, pieces of small scalloped capitals and moulded bases, and of grooved and hollow-chamfered abaci; they are all of late 12th-century date.'

Pevsner & Lloyd (1967) thought the tower was Dec. Bullen et al. (2010) edited this, noting that ‘Although the style is Dec, it was built c.1540 of stone from Wherwell Priory’. While this theory is feasible, no documentary evidence has been found to confirm it. Nevertheless, it is clear that building work was carried out at Wherwell Priory in the 12thc., especially in the 1170s (see History), and could have included chevron.

Pevsner & Lloyd (1967) considered the font to be ‘extremely over-restored’, a comment excised by Bullen et al. in 2010. It dates from c.1200.