Description

SP4631 DEDDINGTON CHURCH STREET (North side) 8/153 Church of St. Peter and St. 08/12/55 Paul GV II* Church. Early C13, late C13, C14 and C15; tower rebuilt and church repaired mid/late C17; repaired 1843, and restored 1858-68 by G.E. Street. Coursed squared marlstone with limestone-ashlar dressings; lead roofs. Chancel, vestry, nave, north and south aisles and porches, west tower. Early-C13 chancel was lengthened to 4 bays in late C13 and has 2-light windows with Y tracery separated by buttresses; one bay on the south has been altered to accommodate the organ and the C19 vestry projects on the north. Both sides have restored C15 square-headed clerestory windows in contemporary walling. Large 3-light east window with geometrical tracery is by Street. Broad south aisle has, to east, a Tudor-arched window with 4 cinquefoil-headed lights above an arched subterranean entry to the crypt. South wall has, to right, a fine 5-light early-C15 window with drop tracery in a 4-centre-arched casement-mould surround, which is attributed to Richard Winchcombe, the designer of the chancel at Adderbury Church (q.v.); a 3-light early-C14 window has cusped intersecting tracery, and a 3-light C15 window to left of the porch has a depressed arch and drop tracery incorporating a transom. C19 porch is flanked by chamfered arched recesses in the aisle walls, and it shelters a C13 doorway with a deeply-moulded arch. 5-light west windows of aisles, with intersecting tracery and head stops, are C17 and contemporary with the tower; a plainer 3-light window in the north wall is probably also a restoration of the same date. C17 north porch has a moulded Tudor-arched doorway and a quatrefoil-panelled parapet with corner pinnacles; two 3-light C14 windows to left of it have geometrical tracery. East window matches that of the south aisle. Nave clerestory has, each side, six 3-light 4-centre-arched windows with Perpendicular drop tracery, and has a 4-light window over the chancel. All roofs are shallow pitched and have plain limestone parapets. Tower, rebuilt after its fall in 1634, was not completed until c.1683. It is of 4 stages with massive diagonal buttresses, and has a crenellated limestone parapet with 8 large crocketed pinnacles. Moulded 4-centre-arched west doorway has hood-stops carved as an eagle and a monkey, and above it is a Classical entablature carried on bulbous pilasters. 4-light west window has Gothic-Survival tracery, and above it large re-used stone figures of Saints Peter and Paul flank a rectangular window. Bell-chamber stage has 2-light openings with Y tracery, and on the east are 2 moulded lead C18 rainwater heads. Interior: chancel has a fine late-C13 sedilia and piscina, incorporated in a 4-bay arcade with detached shafts and leaf capitals. C13 chancel arch of 3 chamfered orders, the inner a C19 restoration. 4-bay nave arcades, of 2 chamfered orders with circular and octagonal columns are C13 but were probably partly rebuilt in C17. Tall tower arch is C17. South aisle has a mutilated c14 piscina, a chamfered tomb recess above which steps rise, and a tall doorway formerly leading to a wall stair. North aisle has a C13 piscina, near the blocked entry to a rood stair, and the early-C13 north doorway, now internal, has a fine moulded arch and detached shafts with stiff-leaf capitals. North aisle roof, with moulded cambered beams, is probably C17; nave roof may incorporate old timbers but was rebuilt 1843; south aisle roof is C19 and chancel roof C20. North porch has a unusual C17 stone saucer vault. Fittings include a fine traceried C15 screen, a font of 1664 and C18 communion rails, but are mostly C19. Monuments include a C14 effigy of a judge, part of a late-C14 brass, and a small panelled chest tomb with indented reredos and a fragment of the brass inscription to William Billing (d.1533); Baroque wall tablets commemorate Beta Belchier (d.1686) and Francis Wakefield (d.1730). Small painted Hanoverian Royal Arms. Stained glass includes east window of 1888 by C.E. Kempe and 2 windows of 1923 and 1936 by A.J. Davies of the Bromsgrove Guild. (Buildings of England: Oxfordshire: pp568-70; VCH: Oxfordshire: Vol XI, pp113-15)

Listing NGR: SP4675031699

External Links

• Wikidata Q17548369

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Recommended Books

• 
  Staffordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Worcestershire Revised Edition (Buildings of England) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
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  Lancashire: Liverpool and the South-West (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  Herefordshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
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  [(Cumberland and Westmorland)] [By (author) Nikolaus Pevsner] published on (January, 1967)