Church Heritage Record 634101

4-bay nave with north aisle and clerestory, south porch, north and south transepts, chancel with north vestry. West bell turret.

[Approx.] Nave 19.5m (64ft) x 6.5m (21ft), chancel 7.5m (24ft) x 6m (20ft)

Within a kilometre south of the site, archaeological records consist of Roman pottery shards, a 14th-15th century metal spoon and a WWII pillbox and tank trap.

St Peter’s was designed by Thomas Talbot Bury [1811-77] in 1864-5.  Bury was a pupil of Augustus Pugin and Bury assisted him and Owen Jones with illustrations for their books. He was a fellow of the Society of Antiquaries, and published his own books on church woodwork and ecclesiastical styles. He started his own office c.1830 and designed in the region of 35 churches and chapels including a new church in Weymouth, St John the Evangelist 1847-54 and Bridport, St Andrew 1858-60 (closed). Church Plans on-line records several others works in Dorset by Bury.

The Revd Gregory Raymond was bachelor rector of Symondsbury from 1806. He wished to bequeath a donation to a charitable organisation and was persuaded by his curate, the Revd Henry Rawlinson, to allocate the money to building a chapel of ease at Eype. Raymond died in 1863 leaving the living of Symondsbury to Rawlinson, curate since 1839, and £3,000 for the church. The site was given by Mr Syndercombe and was transferred on 10th May 1864. An ICBS grant was approved. The foundation stone was laid by the Bishop of Salisbury in 1864 and he consecrated the completed church on 25th August 1865. The mason was George Swaffield of Shipton Gorge and the carpenter George Hayward of Burton.

The church was re-ordered in 2003/4, funded by a local trust (Walbridge Trust). The north aisle was partitioned from the nave and a kitchen and toilets were installed. The pews and choir stalls were removed, organ relocated from the north chancel to the north transept and the floor made level. Stackable upholstered wooden chairs were introduced. The Eype Centre for the Arts was formed, which has occupied the building by Licence under Faculty since 2007.

The archaeological potential of the site is low. There are no known designations relating to the ecology of the plot, though it lies within an AONB, Heritage coast and Landscape Character Area. Evidence of bats exists inside the church.

St Peter’s is large building for a rural chapel of ease. The visitor approaches from the west, and the west gable has a four-light window with three tracery quatrefoils beneath a hoodmould with uncarved square stops. A small stone gabled bell-cote (which replaces the original small fleche) stands at the apex, beneath it is a small trefoil. At the angles are low buttresses linked by moulding at sill level. A lean-to north aisle abuts the north side with two-light west window, and a shallow south porch abutting the south with quatrefoil.

All the principal lights throughout the church have trefoiled heads. The nave is of four bays, the easternmost is wider with transepts projecting north and south (very shallow to south). The windows of the two middle bays of the south wall are of three-lights with differing tracery designs and without hoods. Ends of steel ties are visible high in the south wall. The west bay has an unusual porch which takes the form of a hipped roof with half-hipped gable between two large buttresses. It is surmounted by a decorative iron cross. The side walls are pierced with quatrefoils, and against the inner face of the west wall is a stone seat. This was previously noted as ‘the most striking feature of the church’, it requires some redecoration. ‘To the Glory of God and in memory of the Revd G Raymond’ is inscribed around the inner doorway. Between the porch and the first window is a single lancet.

A door at the west end of the north aisle has decorative iron strap-work. It is beneath a depressed moulded arch with surrounding hoodmould with uncarved stops. The elevation has three three-light windows of low proportions, the bays being divided by plain sloping buttresses, and in the clerestory above are pairs of trefoils. The roof slope is punctuated with flues introduced by the reordering. Both transepts have a circular window above two two-light windows in the gabled wall, the tracery in each side being of different designs with that in the circle of the south wall forming a cross and that in the north being composed of four trefoils.

The chancel roof is lower than the nave and has a four-light east window with two trefoils and a quatrefoil in the head with a small trefoil high in the apex. In the north and south walls are two-light windows with a three-light window further west in the south wall. The remainder of the north wall is obscured by the vestry under a pent roof with a pair of lancets in the east wall and a doorway in the north. A chimney extends up from the vestry along the east wall of the north transept. East gables have stone cross finials. East and south transept windows are protected by polycarbonate sheets.

The interior is straight-forward. There are modern spot-lights and functional modern wood doors. Glass is mostly of diamond-leaded panes with cathedral glass. The stone wall surfaces have long-since been stripped of their plaster with painted plasterwork only within the window recesses. The nave roof is of cusped arch-braces to the collars at each bay resting on stone corbels; iron tie-bars reach across. The main aisle is paved with plain red, buff and black tiles laid lozenge-wise with level stone flags to either side, seated with modern upholstered chairs (pine pews removed during reordering, one survives in the vestry). The font stands centrally at the west end. A brass corona lucis hangs from one of the nearby beams, relocated from the chancel since 1991.

Exhibition boards have been fitted to the south wall of the nave. A stone arch at the east end of the nave opens into the shallow south transept. The three-bay north arcade has been partitioned to form a kitchen in the north-west corner and toilets. A linoleum floor has been laid and a ceiling inserted, presumably creating a small loft space. Stained glass remains in the north windows. The arcade’s cylindrical pillars and semi-octagonal responds, with moulded bases and capitals, remain visible. A pier, inscribed as a WWII memorial, marks the end of the arcade and opens into the transept. The north aisle would have opened into the transept beneath a depressed arch but has since been blocked with the relocated organ to the transept side of this arch. Storage against the north wall of the transept. In the east wall, three steps rise to a door accessing the vestry on the north side of the chancel.

The pointed chancel arch is simply moulded and rests on semi-octagonal responds; it is outlined by a moulded hood with uncarved stops. An inserted platform of three steps projects out into the nave. The pulpit is built out of the chancel projecting into the south-east corner of the nave. Stalls have been cleared, chairs arranged and a piano positioned on the platform. The chancel floor is covered in carpet and it is unclear whether patterned tiles survive beneath. A filled arch on the north side has two doors accessing the vestry. There is one step at the rails and the altar stands on a platform around which the decorative encaustic tiles are exposed. The lower part of the east wall is decorated with a dado of polygonal tiles with impressed floral shapes. The roof is of the same design as that of the nave. Stained glass, virtually all contemporary with the building, fills all four chancel windows. These were described in 1991 as an ‘outstanding feature’ and as ‘showing a richness of colour and drawing of one of the best Victorian firms at its apogee.’