CHURCH OF ST PETER

Overview

Location

Details

TQ 19 SW BUSHEY HIGH ROAD (Northeast side) Bushey Heath

10/78 Church of St. Peter -

GV II

Parish Church. Originally 1836-8. Chancel rebuilt 1891 by J.Neale and the rest 1911 by G.H.Fellowes Prynne. Extended 1921. Rock-faced Kentish ragstone. Ashlar quoins and dressings. Tiled roofs. Gothic Revival Style: Early English chancel, Flamboyant nave and tower. A large church with a 5-bay nave and aisles, double transepts, 2-bay chancel, organ bay, vestry, SE chapel, W baptistery and prominent SW tower. W end: large 5-light window with curvilinear tracery over octagonal baptistery of 1921. 2-stage buttresses with pointed heads. Plinth, string courses, coped gable parapet. 12-light aisle windows to W. 3 stage tower, paired slits below a segmental headed 2-light window. Upper belfry stage with pointed heads to openings, flanking traceried blind lancets. Clasping buttresses chamfered at upper stage. Decorative corbelling below moulded cornice to crenellated parapet with octagonal corners. Main entrance to S in tower: 4 centred arched headed double doors with elaborate iron hinges, moulded and chamfered jambs. Shallow porch: timber with carved tracery and caryatids on a stone base, hipped roof. Above porch a statue in a canopied niche with flanking traceried lancets. At SE angle of tower is a semi-octagonal stair turret with slit windows rising to second stage. S aisle has three 2-light windows with curvilinear tracery. 5 similar windows to N aisle. Buttresses with pointed heads. Quatrefoil lights in clerestoreys. Close eaves. Double gabled transepts with two 3-light windows. Entrances in angles with aisles. Coped parapet from nave and aisle roofs to lower chancel: E end, foundation stone below 5-light window, pointed head, geometrical tracery, straight buttresses, coped gable end parapet. To S: 2 lancets with trefoiled heads. Projecting gabled bay to W end of chancel S wall. Extending from E wall of S transept is Chapel of St. George, 1921, 2 bays of 3-light windows, trefoiled heads in square chamfered surrounds. Plain parapet. Apsidal E end, 2-light windows, straight buttresses. Gabled vestry to SE organ bay and 1-storey vestry to NE. Interior: 5-bay N arcade and 4-bay S arcade: octagonal piers with moulded caps and bases and low relief ornament to chamfered and moulded pointed arches, shafts with angel caryatids rise from arcades to ceiled roof. Pointed, moulded chancel arch with shafts in responds. Blank triple arcades to N and S chancel walls. Sedilia and piscina to E with foiled heads in pointed arch. Large relieving arch to N. 2 broad arches to organ bay to N. Blocked arch at E end of S aisle. Blank triple arcade to S wall to entrance to chapel. Altar frontal c.1891, 5 canopied panels with figures in beaten brass. W window by H.Holiday 1917-18. E window, Crucifixion, by Kemp. (VCH 1923: Pevsner 1977).

Listing NGR: TQ1454894433

Legacy

The contents of this record have been generated from a legacy data system.

Legacy System number:

164126

Legacy System:

LBS

Sources

Books and journals
Doubleday, AH, The Victoria History of the County of Hertford, (1923)
Pevsner, N, Cherry, B, The Buildings of England: Hertfordshire, (1977)

Legal

This building is listed under the Planning (Listed Buildings and Conservation Areas) Act 1990 as amended for its special architectural or historic interest.