Description

BRENTWOOD

TQ5793 WEALD ROAD, South Weald
723-1/16/289 (North side)
21/10/58 Church of St Peter

GV II*

Church. C12, C13, late C15, heavily restored with new nave and
chancel by SS Teulon in 1868. Tower, Kentish ragstone, church,
flint, indurated conglomerate, erratics and limestone
fragments, oolitic limestone dressings. Peg-tiled roof. Nave
and chancel on site of former C13 N aisle, no structural
division, organ chamber to N. S aisle and S chapel, former C13
nave and chancel with later C15 tower at W end.
EXTERIOR: S elevation, to W, ragstone tower with angle
butresses, 3 stages, lowest blank except for bell moulding to
plinth. Middle stage C19 window, 2-centred arch with 2 lights
- in front, C19 clock under heavy gabled hood with angels. Top
stage with crenellated parapets and cornice with gargoyle
spouts, belfry opening with louvres and super-mullioned
tracery. Crenellated stair tower rising above parapet at
junction with nave. Nave walling rebuilt in C19, 2 prominent
stone bands with 3 principal registers and plinth, flint and
cobble walling. Lowest register has considerable amount of
indurated conglomerate in contrived random scatter. Upper
register has a conspicuous pattern of imitation putlog holes
framed by limestone slabs infilled with knapped flint. Windows
all C19, 2-centred, containing paired lancets and with
quatrefoiled circle tracery, head stopped labels. Nave, W-E
window, C12 doorway, partly restored, column shafts and arch
with zigzag decoration, volute capitals, tympanum diapered
with segmental soffit arch of half roll with 3 transverse roll
segments. C19 door, boarded with imitation C12 `C' hinges. C19
timber porch in medieval form, central arch, side openings
with quatrefoil and trefoil decoration, open gable with king
post in collar, paired curved braces each side: 4 windows in
buttressed bays, C19 roundel with St Peter's hand holding 2
keys (old and new church?). Chancel, as aisle, single window
in perpendicular style, 2 lights with super-mullions and head
stopped labels. N elevation, W-E, tower, as on S elevation but
no clock, nave - C15 style window, upper tracery of
super-mullions, original and re-set. Church hall of 1981
attached and entered through N doorway, 3 windows in
perpendicular style, each 3 lights, buttresses between,
walling in same style as on S elevation, organ chamber with
similar walling, hipped roof, doorway with 2-centred head on W
side. C19 boarded door with ironwork. Chancel with
perpendicular styled window - 2 lights with super-mullions,
head stops to label. E end elevation - gable ends of chancel
and S aisle, organ chamber to N, walling as on S elevation but
putlog decoration in each register. Nave gable has 5-light
perpendicular style window, cinquefoiled roundel above. Aisle
gable, 3-light window in geometrical style, oculus and 2 small
round-headed apertures above. Organ chamber with one 2-light
perpendicular styled window and one 5-light with hood mould,
each light 4-centred. W elevation, tower as S elevation but
with west doorway partly restored with moulded and shafted
jambs and moulded 4-centred arch with traceried spandrel in a
square head with moulded label, door C19, boarded, with iron
work, above, 4-light perpendicular style window with
super-mullions, middle and top stages as S elevation - window
and belfry opening witn crenellated parapet: to N gable end of
nave, walling as on E elavation with putlog holes in each
register, 4-light perpendicular style window, roundel with
quatrefoil above.
INTERIOR: 6 bay original C13 arcade between nave and aisle,
capitals and bases restored, drums round except 2 which are
octagonal. C19 hood mould with naturalistic leaf stops. Roof
of nave and chancel of soft-wood, side purlins with deep
arched braces, king struts and curved braces on collars,
traceried spandrels. Choir has 3 tiers of decorated
wind-bracing and stone corbels of angels playing musical
instruments. Truss at nave-chancel junction enriched with
pierced cusping. Aisle, side purlin roof with curved bracing
to each truss to create a waggon roof, king struts to each
collar. E end also boarded. Choir has alabaster reredos
depicting the entombment, alabaster screen walls. Iron chancel
rails by GG Scott. Aisle chapel, oak screen, decorated style.
Tower arch perpendicular, 2-centred with moulded responds. W
window C19 stained glass with 2 C15 panels, probably Flemish,
Abraham and Isaac and King Solomon and the Queen of Sheba,
door to tower stair c1500, boarded with moulded battens and
nail studding that goes through rear cross boarding and swaged
over lozenge shaped washers. Font dated 1662, polygonal with
acanthus leaves round pedestal. Re-sited brasses at rear of
nave, several fragments from C15 to C17. Floor slab in tower,
1663, to Henry Wright, Bart.. Further slabs of C17 and C18 now
as a path in churchyard S of aisle. Standing wall monument in
aisle chapel, 1757, Hugh Smith, sarcophagus and grey obelisk
with large roundel having 2 profiles, facing one another. The
curious decoration used by Teulon on the C19 church walls,
consisting of indurated conglomerate and putlog holes is no
doubt derived from the original Norman church walls in which
courses of conglomerate commonly occur in Essex, e.g.
Ingatestone, and, in which putlog holes were often left, e.g.
Great Canfield. Teulon has used them as major decorative
elements.

Listing NGR: TQ5713093869

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q17544988

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

• 
  Cornwall (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Handbook: A Practical Guide to Care and Repair
• 
  Yorkshire West Riding: Leeds, Bradford and the North (Pevsner Architectural Guides / Buildings of England)
• 
  Cambridgeshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Period Property Manual (New Ed)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)