Uppingham is a large market town sited between Peterborough and Leicester. St Peter and Paul is a large parish church in the centre of town just off the main market place. The tall W tower and nave with N and S aisles are primarily of the 14^thc., although the N aisle was widened and a fourth bay was added to the nave during a major restoration in 1860-61 by Henry Parsons of London. Parsons also demolished and completely rebuilt the chancel and flanking N chapel and S organ chamber and vestry. In the interior, flanking the nave N doorway and also the E window of the N chapel, are four fragments of reset Romanesque sculpture.

Uppingham is not mentioned in DB, however it is believed that the church here is one of three mentioned as attached to the manor of Ridlington in 1086. Edward the Confessor had granted Rutland to Queen Edith and on her death it passed to William the Conqueror in 1075. William granted the church back to Westminster Abbey in acknowledgement of an earlier grant by Edward the Confessor. Westminster Abbey retained the advowson until the Dissolution in the 16^th century.

These four fragments were discovered during Parsons’ major 1861 restoration project. The original context of the fragments is unknown; perhaps they were part of a screen or frieze. Pevsner dates these sculptures to c. 1200. Tantalizingly, he also notes “two more demi-figures were found in 1881” – one wonders where they are now?