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St Pega, Peakirk, Soke of Peterborough

Location
(52°38′43″N, 0°16′30″W)
Peakirk
TF 168 067
pre-1974 traditional (England and Wales) Soke of Peterborough
now Peterborough
  • Ron Baxter

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Description

St Pega's has a clerestoreyed nave with N and S aisles and W bell-cote, and a chancel with N chapel and vestry which together extend the N aisle to the E wall as the chancel. The nave is tall and narrow, with long-and-short quoins at the SW angle which suggest an 11thc. date. The N arcade dates from the 12thc., and the S arcade from the 13thc. The N chapel arch and the chancel arch are later 12thc, the latter perhaps in its lower parts only. The exterior is faced with ashlar blocks; regular in the S aisle, irregular elsewhere. Romanesque features are the nave doorways, the S elaborate and protected by a 14thc. porch, the N plain and unprotected; the N nave arcade, chancel arch and N chapel arch; the W bell-cote, and a loose capital now in the N aisle.

History

A confirmation of the grant of lands to Peterborough (Medeshamstede) by Wulfhere, king of Mercia, in 664 includes Peakirk, but this is generally thought to be a post-Conquest forgery. Like most of the Peterborough villages it does not appear in the Domesday Survey.

Benefice of Peakirk with Glinton and Northborough.

Features

Exterior Features

Doorways

Exterior Decoration

Miscellaneous

Interior Features

Arches

Chancel arch/Apse arches

Arcades

Nave

Loose Sculpture

Comments/Opinions

The dedication is unique. Pega was a sister of St Guthlac of Croyland and a member of the Mercian nobility who became an anchoress and died in 719 returning from a pilgrimage to Rome. The capital forms of the N arcade, including the zigzag scallops, also appear in the S arcade at nearby Maxey.

Bibliography

Victoria County History: Northamptonshire. II (1906).

N. Pevsner, The Buildings of England. Bedfordshire and the County of Huntingdon and Peterborough, Harmondsworth 1968, 303-04.