Description

FLYFORD FLAVELL

648/6/450 CHURCH OF ST PETER
11-FEB-65

II

Medieval parish church rebuilt in 1883 by W.J. Hopkins.

MATERIALS: Grey and red sandstone in squared blocks and laid in regular courses, tile roof.

PLAN: Nave with lower and narrower chancel, west tower, south porch and north vestry.

EXTERIOR: The 2-stage tower has diagonal buttresses and embattled parapet. It has a renewed 3-light Perpendicular west window, and square-headed 2-light belfry openings with labels. The remainder of the church is C19 Gothic-revival style. The nave has buttresses set well back from the west end, and south-east angle buttress. The south doorway has continuous moulding, with 2-light square-headed window to its right and cusped pointed window to its left. The porch is timber-framed on a dwarf wall, incorporating a trefoil arcading on turned posts, and entrance arch with carved spandrels and pierced-quatrefoil barge boards. The north side has similar windows to the south, with the addition of a 3-light square-headed central window. There is also a blocked round-headed north doorway. The chancel has angle buttresses. There are 3 cusped south windows with sill and impost bands. The east wall has 3 stepped windows with quatrefoil tracery lights, linked hoodmoulds and head stops. On the north side is one window similar to the south side, and the integral vestry, which has a 3-light square-headed transomed north window.

INTERIOR: Walls are exposed red and grey sandstone, creating a mild polychrome effect. Nave and chancel have keeled, boarded wagon roofs, with moulded ribs, foliage bosses. The tall tower arch has a very broad chamfer. The C19 chancel arch has moulding dying into the imposts. The east wall has shafted rere-arches incorporating dogtooth friezes. A piscina in the south-east angle is on a stiff-leaf corbel and beneath a trefoil-headed canopy. Beneath the tower are late-medieval floor tiles. Other tiles are C19. The nave has a floor of red and black tiles, with raised wood floors below the pews. In the chancel are decorative tiles.

PRINCIPAL FIXTURES: The octagonal font is C15 and has roses and fleurs-de-lis on the hollow-chamfered underside, but the stem and base are modern. The benches with moulded ends are of 1883, but there are also 2 plain Jacobean benches. The polygonal wooden pulpit has blind Gothic panels incorporating some C16 tracery, and foliage trail cornice of similar date. A chancel screen also incorporates older wood, probably from a C16 rood screen. It has 3 bays either side of the entrance, with delicate tracery to main lights, and C16 foliage trail and brattishing. Choir seats have moulded ends with arm rests. The wooden communion rail is on iron standards with scrollwork brackets. There are fragments of medieval glass in one south window.

HISTORY: The C15 tower of the medieval church has survived, but the remainder of the present building is mainly a rebuilding in 1883 by W.J. Hopkins (1820-1901), architect of Worcester, for William Laslett of Abberton Hall. Only parts of the nave south wall and buttresses, and the blocked north doorway, are earlier.

SOURCES:
Brooks, A and Pevsner, N., The Buildings of England: Worcestershire (2007), 319.

REASONS FOR DESIGNATION: The church of St Peter, Flyford Flavell, is listed at Grade II for the following principal reasons:
* For its C15 west tower.
* The remainder of the building is a Gothic-revival church retaining C19 character and detail.
* It has early fixtures of interest, including late-medieval floor tiles, C15 font bowl, and a pulpit and screen incorporating C16 woodwork.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26290930

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Gloucestershire 1: The Cotswolds: Cotswolds Pt. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Northumberland (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Bedfordshire, Huntingdonshire, and Peterborough (Pevsner Architectural Guides): Written by Charles O'Brien, 2014 Edition, Publisher: Yale University Press [Hardcover]
• 
  Norfolk 1: Norwich and North-East: Norwich and North-east v. 1 (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Dorset (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)