Church Heritage Record 628331

The devotion to St Pega (673-719), sister of St Guthlac, is unusual. Most of the sources we have for St Pega came via his brother St Guthlac. According to the ‘VITA SANCTI GUTHLACI AUCTORE FELICE’, primary source of information about the life of St Guthlac, both brothers were descendants from the upper class of the kingdom of Mercia and, after Guthlac decided to become a hermit after serving in the army, Pega followed his steps. St Guthlac established the site of his hermitage at Crowland, in Lincolnshire, and St Pega established hers in what is now Peakirk, after the king granted her the site for her hermitage. The original site for this hermitage is on the site of St Pega’s cell and oratory, 500 metres from the parish church and its original dedication was to St Bartholomew.

Peakirk's church is claimed to have gained the status of a minster and that Peakirk monastery was merged with Crowland Abbey between 1053 and 1065, and the church became its property.

Dr Avril Lumley Prior and contributors tells us in St Pega’s guidebook that “From at least 1146, Peakirk church supported a chapel-of-ease of St Benedict, at Glinton, linked by the present St Pega’s road. (…). A Neolithic track described on old Ordnance Surveys maps as the Peakirk- Glinton footway, stretches from Rectory Lane, across the fields as far as Glinton North Fern Road and thence to the pre-drainage summer pastures on North Fern, south of the river Welland”.

The church is said to have pass through various denominations in its years of history, The first minster was ‘New Minster of the Holy Trinity, The Virgin Maryb and all the Saint’s. A papal bull of Eugenius II decrees that the church is now a parish church, with the chapel-at-ease. By the end of the 13th century the church was known as All Saints, and will be consecrated to St Pega in 1514, after becoming part of the Peterborough Cathedral possessions.

The church was erected in the 11th century – 1014/15-, with subsequent expansions such as the north aisle extension in the 12th century and the south aisle addition in the 13th century. The vestry was added around 1350.The building consists of a nave, chancel, north aisle, south aisle, Lady (or north) chapel, vestry, and south porch. The chancel was restored in 1878-79 by Edward Barry, who also relocated the pulpit from the nave to its actual position. In 1944-48  Leslie T. Moore reinstated the Lady chapel to its actual use.

The outstanding wall paintings, that covered the church, were limewashed during the reign of Edward VI (1547-53) and were rediscovered in 1843 by Edmund Artis, a local archaeologist who was doing structural repairs in the church.  Edward Clive Rouse exposed the rest of the paintings in 1950 and tried to preserve them by covering them with beeswax, which damaged the paintings. The paintings were stabilised in 1970 by the Eve Baker Trust and at this moment solutions are being proposed for their preservation for future generations. The paintings have different themes, all related to biblical or moral tales. Above the nave’s north arcade there is a representation of St Christopher, with the donor at the Saint’s feet. Surrounding him we have several scenes form the Passion Cycle, spread over two tiers. On the North aisle wall, we have the moral tales, with a representation of two whispering woman (A warning to gossips) and three kings with 3 skeletons (The Quick and the Dead). On the south wall of the name, we can find remains of post-Reformation texts, written in English. Unfortunately, other paintings were already damaged when Rouse discovered them and have been lost.

Another significant feature of the church is the revolving lectern, dated from the late 13th century- early 14th century and of medium significance. From the same time period we have the fragment of a gravestone known as Heart Stone, of medium-low significance.

From the 14th  we have some stone corbels, located in the various areas of the church, and shaped as human heads, of medium-high significance. The simple font, of medium significance, dates also from the 14th century.

CE Kempe & co Ltd. created the design of the stained-glass windows in the chancel in 1915, depicting the  Virgin Mary, St Pega, Christ Crucified, St John and St Peter, of medium significance. The other stained-glass windows of the church are also either Victorian or early 20th century. Other themes used in these windows are a copy of the painting “Light of the World” by William Holman Hunt, Moses striking the rock, the Baptism of Christ, St Pega and St Guthlac amongst others.

St Pega still conserves highly significant Norman features in different parts of the church, the main example being the south door that leads from the porch to inside the church. In here we can find a geometric tympanum decorated with rows of different designs. Working concentrically towards the external circle we have, fan decoration in the main area of the tympanum with a row of sawtooth under it, a band of diagonal rolls and a band of beading. The architraves are also decorated with geometric decoration  with single quirked rolls on face and soffit with pyramidal lozenges on the arris. Then a row of lozenges, and two rows of cusping.

The church also contains memorials of different eras and significance, as well as floor slabs.

The church used to have a rood screen which was accessed via the rood staircase, of which only 3 steps remain on the north side of the chancel arch.

The arches that divide the different areas of the church are Norman- north arcade-,  gothic- chancel-, and Early English- the south arcade. There are traces of painted decorations and the capitals have foliage decoration.

The ceilings of the church are simple, with rafters and alternate between flat ceiling in the chancel and nave and sloping in the aisles and north chapel. The floors are made of stone.

The church has piscinas and aumbries both in the chancel and in the south aisle. The piscina located in the south wall in the chancel has plain pointed chamfered arch with a wall basin whereas the one in the south wall of the south aisle has a plain pointed arch and chamfered edges with a quatrefoil drain. As for the aumbries, the one in the north wall of the chancel is rectangular with pine insert and the one in the south aisle is rectangular with a chamfered edge.