Description

TL 6370 FORDHAM CHURCH STREET (south side)

12/97 Parish Church of St Peter's 19.8.59 I

Parish church noted for its very fine late C13 and early C14 first floor chapel and undercroft serving also as a north porch entrance, restored in 1864. Nave arcades, transitional late C12 and early C13, survive from original church with re-used stone in south aisle wall. North and south aisles rebuilt, early C14 with some Norman material and window in north aisle; tower late C14 with C15 embattlements. Vestry and chancel C13 rebuilt in C15. Church restored in 1846. Frescoes in style of William Morris designed by C P Leonard and executed in 1905 by Edith and Minnie Townsend. Tower frescoes by C P Leonard. Flint, originally plastered with barnack and limestone dressings. Lead roofs, low pitched to aisles and have, gabled chancel. Nave gable with coped, cross-stepped parapet and east gable wall of chancel both with cross finials. West tower with moulded plinth and later embattled parapet has angle buttresses of four stages, buttresses to north west included in belfry stair turret term- inating above tower and lit by quatrefoils. Belfry windows of two cinquefoil lights in two-centred arches. Clerestory of five 'bays' with embattled parapet has moulded four-centred arches to each window with pairs of cinquefoil lights. Aisle parapet embattled, three aisle windows with three cinquefoil lights and quartrefoil in spandrel, and one C15 or C16 window in east 'bay' similar to vestry window, both in four-centred arches. Late C13 vestry door reset with shafted jambs, bell capitals and moulded bases, and deeply moulded two-centred arch. Chancel east window C19 restored. North Chapel, two storeys three 'bays' with vaulted undercroft. Angle buttresses of three stages. Plain tile roof with gable parapets rebuilt in C19. Stair turret with external two-centred arched entrance in western bay. Entrance to undercroft two-centred arch of three chamfered orders. Single conquefoil lights at ground floor and decorated tracery to first floor three light windows in two-centred archs. Church interior: Tower arch C15 with moulded outer and inner orders, chancel arch with attached half piers. Nave arcade of five bays of two chamfered orders to two-centred arches with moulded capitals and bases to octagonal piers. Nave roof of ten bays with carved bosses at tie beam intersections and at alternate bays. Chapels flanking chancel C19. Fine C15 roof to chancel, richly ornamented principal timbers and arch braced queen posts. Carved angels in each bay and across each tie beam. Restored C13 double piscenae and sidilia with deeply moulded two-centred arches and shafts with moulded capitals and bases. C15 choir stalls with misericords. Pews with angels etc carved as poppy heads. Font C15 with lightly carved panels of blind arches. Brass lecturn, 1881 copy of C15 lecturn at Isleham. Reredos 1886. Pulpit 1918, limestone, with carved wood and brass balusters to stair. Old glass in Lady chapel and in north aisle. Brass to William Chesewright d.1521 in south aisle. Late C19 and modern glass by Heaton Butler and Co., Clayton and Bell, Hardman, Constable of Cambridge, and poets window by Mrs Dawson Waugh.

Pevnser. Buildings of England, p.385 Bell J, supp. Ivatt. History of Fordham, 1873, 1923

Listing NGR: TL6334870722

External Links

• Wikidata Q17527677

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Recommended Books

• 
  Sussex: West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Oxfordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Development and Design of Heritage Sensitive Sites: Strategies for Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas
• 
  Derbyshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Maintaining and Repairing Old Houses: A Guide to Conservation, Sustainability and Economy