Church of St Peter Bucknell, England

Text courtesy of Historic England. © Crown Copyright, reprinted under the Open Government License.

BUCKNELL BAINTON ROAD SP52NE (South side) 4/14 Church of St. Peter 07/12/66 GV I

Church. C11/C12, C13 and C15, restored 1893 by A. Mardon Mowbray; Limestone rubble with marlstone- and limestone-ashlar dressings; concrete plain-tile and lead roofs. Nave, central tower, chancel, south porch and transeptal vestry. C13 chancel has a triplet of lancets to east, each with a roll-moulded arch and detached shafts with linked waterleaf capitals; the side walls each have 3 plain lancets lane to north restored) plus a low-side window, and there is a priest's door to south and a small mutilated piscina in the north wall. The lower stages of the tower are Romanesque: a plain round-headed ground-floor window survives on the north, and the smaller window above it has a chevron-decorated arched head matching a window in the projecting north-west stair turret; the original top stage has four large openings, 3 of which retain 2 shafted inner arches, the central mullion of the northern opening having profuse chevron oration. The rounded upper stages of the stair turret must be an early addition, but the battlemented top stage of the tower is probably C14 and has 2-light traceried openings. The vestry to south of the tower is C19. The C13 nave retains 2 plain lancets on the north plus a fine moulded doorway with stiff leaf capitals on detached shafts; to south are 2 similar lancets, and a very elaborate doorway with pairs of detached shafts flanking an engaged shaft, and with mutilated undercut ornament on the arch. The large western lancet has engaged shafts with fine stiff-leaf capitals. The nave also has 2-light C14 low-side windows at its eastern end, and an added C15 clerestory. The porch is medieval but has a restored archway. Interior: The east window has fine shafted rere arches, and there is a trefoil-headed piscina or niche halfway down the north wall of the chancel. The eastern arch of the tower, of 2 chamfered orders, is probably C14, but the plain round-headed western arch remains. Blind Romanesque arches, with simple abaci, in the north and south walls of the tower are echoed by similar chamfered arches over the low-side windows of the nave. The sills of these windows have quatrefoil bowl piscinas. A C13 string course, running around the walls of the chancel and nave linking the sills, rises over the doorways and the blind arches in the nave. There is a trefoil-headed holy-water stoup, and the fine hinges, now on the inside of the south door, are probably also C13 or earlier. The roofs of the nave and chancel are probably both C19. The plastered walls have traces of medieval colour but the lined decoration in the nave is probably C19. The low-side windows in the nave have C19 stained glass, and the St. George in the west window by A.K. Nicholson is of c.1918. Fittings include a Jacobean pulpit with arched panels and 6 baluster legs. Monuments include some early-C17 brass-inscriptions, and 4 elaborate late-C17 and C18 marble wall tablets to members of the Trotman family; further members are commemorated by contemporary black marble ledgers in the nave floor. The church is one of the best examples of C13 work in the county, and has the largest number of low-side windows of any church in England. (VCH; Oxfordshire, Vol VI, pp78-9; Buildings of England: Oxfordshire, pp500-501)

Listing NGR: SP5608325599