Diameter: 9.13" Bell 1 of 2
Founded by Unidentified (blank)
Dove Bell ID: 62952 Tower ID: 25131 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Turnings: unturned Cracked: No
Claydon: St Peter
Overview
Grid reference: TM 137 498
The tower is fifteenth century, the nave of Saxon origins, but now mostly fourteenth and fifteenth-century in appearance. The transepts and chancel date from 1862, when the Revd. George Drury rebuilt the previous small chancel on a much larger scale and added transepts to it.
Visiting and facilities
Building is closed for worship
Building
Ground Plan Description and Dimensions
Ground plan:
West tower, aisleless nave with north porch; transepts; chancel with south organ chamber and north vestry.
Description of Archaeology and History
The tower is fifteenth century, the nave of Saxon origins, but now mostly fourteenth and fifteenth-century in appearance. The transepts and chancel date from 1862, when the Revd. George Drury rebuilt the previous small chancel on a much larger scale and added transepts to it. He seems to have been his own architect.
Exterior Description
West tower, aisleless nave with north porch; transepts; chancel with south organ chamber and north vestry.
The west tower is of three stages, of which the lower two are undivided externally. There are diagonal buttresses to the western corners but none to the eastern corners. These stand on plinths decorated with flint flushwork, and there are panels of flushwork on the outer faces of the buttresses arranged in pairs; the lowest pair has pretty cinquefoiled ogee heads, but those higher up are plainer, with simple trefoiled heads. The north and south walls are blind as far as a stringcourse which marks the top of the buttresses and also the division of the belfry from the stage below.
The western angles of the nave show some Saxon long-and-short work to a considerable height; this seems to have been squared off and tidied up a little. The rendering on the rest of the walls makes their building history obscure, but they are apparently built of rubble. The original main entrance to the church was by the north door which faces towards the village; this was thereforen covered by a porch in the fifteenth century. The corners are rather crude and much above a stringcourse at the level of the apex of the arch has been rebuilt, as have the gabletted brick battlements.
The transopts may be taken externally as a single unit ; the most striking feature is that the ridge of the roof, being so much taller than the nave or chancol, runs right across from north to south, giving an awkward cross-emphasis. The north and south walls have big three-light windows with slightly differing cusped tracery and there are low diagonal buttresses. The gables are crowned with foliated grosses, The use of un-knapped flints enforces the contrast with the nave in comparison with the gently-coloured rendering on the walls of the latter.
The north and south walls of the chancel are both obscured by additional chambers. On the south is an organ chamber which is gabled parallel to the chancel and has a boilor chimney at the south-east corner. The doorway in the south wall is a strange interpretation of Early English set close to the neighbouring trefoiled lancet.
On the north side of the chancel are two smaller gables, one of which is very narrow and rather low; it seems to have been built solely for the purpose of housing the sanctus boll which hengs in a small trefoil-arched cote at the apex; the other is the vestry, of nuch the same height as the last but wider, and with a two-light cusped window.
The east wall of the chanccl is surprising because it is medieval and seems to have survived the nineteenth-century rebuilding. The east window has mediaeval grotesques at the label stops; the window itself is of three equal lancet lights, all trofoiled, and has a six-pointed rose as tracery.
Interior
Interior Description
The small nave has a simple fifteenth-century arch-braced roof of three bays with moulded wall plates decorated with bratishing. It seems to have been panelled between the purlins. The floor is paved with bricks, both at the west end and under the pews, and with tiles and concrete in the alley.
The walls are plastered with an uneven surface, and are painted white with the exception of a small rectangle on the north wall.
At the east end of the nave is a wide heavily moulded arch carried on half-round shafts with semi-circular moulded capitals which introduces the 1862 work. The unexpected thing is the next bay, which is arched in the four cardinal directions (to the nave, chancel and transepts) and is vaulted in wood with four quarter-fan vaults to give the impression of a crossing space. In the middle of the vault is a panel carved with a cross painted red. The piors of the nave and chancel arches rise from the floor, but those to the transept arches are triple, and are carried on big corbels with lavish carving of grapes, oak leaves and acorns, hops and ivy, all deeply undercut, naturalistic and rather elaborate. The transepts are roofed with panelled ceilings with foliated bosses at the intersections of the ribs.
The chancel was formerly divided from the nave by a minimun-Gothic screen, but this has been removed; arches on the north and south open into the flanking chambers.
The roof of the chancel is braced with seni-circular arched braces, introducing a form which appears nowhere else in the building; it is in now three bays, decorated with stencilled embellishment in polychromy, chiefly red. The main features are loaf-trails and trefoils along the arch braces and florets on the rafters; the spandrels have quatrofoils within roundels.
The east wall is of some interest also; the window comes quite low and seems never to have been obscured by a reredos.
Fixtures and fittings
Stained Glass
c.1862
The east window has glass of c.1862, with small panels of Scenes from the Life of Christ and symbols of the Evangelists and the Eucharist.
Stained Glass
c.1840
The west window has pretty formalised roses in the tracery lights, done in the bright red and blue characteristic of about 1840.
Stained Glass
c.1915
Nave south window: The Good Samaritan and The Good Shepherd.
Stained Glass
c.1895
South transept: The Annunciation, The Nativity and The Presentation in the Temple, by A.L. Moore of London.
Stained Glass
c.1895
North transept: Gothsemane, The Crucifixion and The Ascension, with Christ in Majesty in the tracery light. By A.L. Moore
Stained Glass
c.1870
North transept west window: Christ and Mary Magdalene.
Stained Glass
c.1950
Chancel south window: St. Peter
Organ (object)
c.1880
The organ is said in the Inventory to be by Bevington. It dates from c.1880 and has two manuals with ten speaking stops.
Font (object)
The font is painted white. It is octagonal, with a panelled stem and a bowl with flat demi-figures carved on the underside. The bowl has ogee headed trefoiled panels with four crowns and four angels with big blank shields.
Pulpit
The Pulpit is of stone, carved as openwork tracery of lace-like effect; the front is a big curved panel with a roundel filled with tracery derived from Billings book on Gothic ornament. Each side, under crocketted canopies, are polychrome figures of female Saints. It was carved by Drury.
Lectern
1930
The lectern is an oak eagle.
Bells
Nominal: 1040 Hz Weight: 560 lbs Diameter: 29.75" Bell 2 of 2
Founded by John Darbie 1676
Dove Bell ID: 62953 Tower ID: 25131 - View Tower Listed: No Canons: Removed Turnings: quarter Cracked: No
Churchyard
Grid reference: TM 137 498
Burial and War Grave Information
It is unknown whether the building is consecrated.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has been used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard is used for burial.
It is unknown whether the churchyard has war graves.
National Heritage record for England designations
There are no records of National Heritage assets within the curtilage of this site.
Environment
Ancient, Veteran & Notable Trees
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
There are no records of Ancient, Veteran or Notable Trees within the curtilage of this site.
Renewables
| Renewable | Installed |
|---|---|
| Solar PV Panels | N/A |
| Solar Thermal Panels | N/A |
| Biomass | N/A |
| Wind Turbine | N/A |
| Air Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ground Source Heat Pump | N/A |
| Ev Charging | N/A |
Species summary
There are no records of species within the curtilage of this site.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
'Seek advice' Species
More information on species and action to be taken upon discovery.
Caring for God's Acre is a conservation charity working to support groups and individuals to investigate, care for, and enjoy the wildlife and heritage treasures found within churchyards and other burial grounds. Look on their website for information and advice and please contact their staff directly. They can help you manage this churchyard for people and wildlife.
To learn more about all the species recorded against this church, go to the Burial Ground Portal within the NBN Atlas. You can check the spread of records through the years, discovering what has been recorded and when, plus what discoveries might remain to be uncovered.
Further information
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