St Mary and St Peter's Church is a Grade I listed Church of England parish church dedicated to Saint Mary and Saint Peter in Harlaxton, Lincolnshire, England. The church is south-east from Grantham, and at the eastern edge of the Vale of Belvoir in South Kesteven.
St Mary and St Peter's is noted in particular for its association with and memorials to the Harlaxton Manor Gregory and de Ligne families, c.1410 effigies of Sir Richard Rickhill and his wife, Elizabeth, and the church's 19th-century restoration by John Oldrid Scott
The church is within the Harlaxton conservation area."Harlaxton: A Village Design Statement", Lincolnshire County Council. Retrieved 7 May 2014,"Harlaxton: Conservation Area Appraisal and Management Plan", South Kesteven District Council (2013). Retrieved 7 May 2014, It is in the ecclesiastical parish of Harlaxton and is part of the Harlaxton Group of Parishes in the Deanery of Loveden and the Diocese of Lincoln. Other churches in the same group are St Andrew’s, Denton; All Saints’, Stroxton; St James’, Woolsthorpe; and St Catherine's, Wyville."St Mary & St Peter, Harlaxton", The Harlaxton Group of Parishes web site. Retrieved 7 May 2014"Harlaxton P C C", Diocese of Lincoln. Retrieved 7 May 2014
History St Mary and St Peter's parish register dates from 1558 and includes that of Wyville with Hungerton up to 1813.
No church or priest for Harlaxton is mentioned in the 1086 Domesday Book."Harlaxton", Domesdaymap.co.uk. Retrieved 7 May 2014 According to English Heritage, between 1174 and 1185 land at Harlaxton to build a church was provided by William the Conqueror’s granddaughter Matilda."St Mary and St Peter, Church Street", English Heritage. Retrieved 7 May 2014 By 1535 Harlaxton held one of the nine chantries within the deanery of Grantham.Street, Benjamin; "Religious Guilds and Chantries", Historical Notes on Grantham, and Grantham Church (1857), p. 59, reprint The British Library (2010). Retrieved 7 May 2014 The present church structure dates, in parts, from the late 12th century, with later additions and alterations in the 13th, 14th and 15th centuries."Church and churchyard of St Mary and St Peter and churchyard, Harlaxton", Lincs to the past, reference: MLI30030, Lincolnshire County Council. Retrieved 7 May 2014 The church spire was restored in 1885, and the interior in 1856-58 at which time the south porch was rebuilt. The interior was again restored in 1890-91 by John Oldrid Scott at a cost of £1,200—Pevsner believes this later Scott work "grossly over-restored".Pevsner, Nikolaus; Harris, John: The Buildings of England: Lincolnshire, Penguin (1964); revised by Nicholas Antram (1989), Yale University Press, p. 560. Second edition vol. 27, p. 361. Cox gives a further restoration date of 1898.Cox, J. Charles (1916): Lincolnshire p. 156. Methuen & Co. Ltd. Before the 1856 restoration an "elegant" Gothic carved oak rood screen between the chancel and nave was noted.Lewis, Samuel; 'Haresfield - Harlington', A Topographical Dictionary of England (1848), pp. 409-413. Retrieved 29 April 2014Turnor, Edmund; Collections for the History of the Town and Soke of Grantham Containing Authentic Memoirs of Sir Isaac Newton, William Miller (1806), pp. 105-110 In 1925 a new steel bell frame was added by Loughborough Bellfoundry to the tower belfry stage, with its five 5 bells retuned and rehung. St Mary and St Peter's bells today number six, provided by bellfounders: Nottingham Foundry (c.1500), Henry Oldfield (c. 1620), Hugh Watts (1635), two by Robert Taylor (1820), and John Taylor & Co (1946). A hung sanctus bell (c. 1699), acts as a 'call to prayer' and is not part of the peal."Harlaxton", Dove's Guide for Church Bell Ringers, Retrieved 7 May 2014 At some point, and by a person unknown, one and a half acres of land (called a 'close'), was endowed to the rector for the ringing of the sanctus bell at 4am and 8pm each day. This land became known as 'Day Bell Close'.Allen, Thomas (1834); "Harlaxton", The History Of The County Of Lincoln: From The Earliest Period To The Present Time, volumes 1-2, p. 109, reprint Nabu Press (2011), . Retrieved 7 May 2014
The earliest record of a priest at Harlaxton is that of Gilbert de Segrave in 1291; the earliest rector at the time of the Church of England’s Secession and break with Rome being Richard Reynes in 1551. By 1795 tithes to the parish—typically payment of one-tenth of income—had been replaced by a cornrent, whereby payments were made in corn rather than money. Land for this purpose comprised of glebe—land used to support a parish priest—with net income obtained from such, £760. In 1855 the parish incumbent was Rev Henry Mirehouse MA, who held a living and rectory of a yearly value of £550 and about of glebe land under the patronage of the prebendary of South Grantham.Kelly's Directory of Lincolnshire 1885, p. 112 By 1885 the living and rectory—which had attained a gross yearly value of £586 and included a residence in the gift of Queen's College, Oxford—had been held since 1867 by Rev Edward Garfit MA of St John's College, Cambridge, who was also a prebendary of Lincoln Cathedral.Kelly's Directory of Lincolnshire with the port of Hull 1855, p. 467 By 1933 the rectory had united with Wyville with Hungerton, with a joint net yearly value £547, including glebe land and residence—these in the alternate gift of Queen's College, Oxford, and T. S. Pearson Gregory DL JP—and had been held since 1920 by Rev Alban Sackett Hope MA of Queen's College, Oxford.Kelly's Directory of Lincolnshire 1933, p. 281
St Mary and St Peter's received a National Heritage Grade I building listing in 1966.
An archeological Watching Brief was held in 2005 during trench groundwork at the south, west and north of the church to establish pipes for a new heating system. During the work evidence of earlier building was not discovered but a stone fragment was uncovered together with a number of small bones and a skull."Installation of new gas pipe, Church of St Mary and St Peter, Harlaxton, Lincolnshire", Intervention Report AHSS02 / Excavation archive LCNCC 2005.184. Witham Archaeology, December 2005. Acceptance of terms of use required. Retrieved 7 May 2014
St Mary and St Peter's received funding for repairs to epitaphs from The Society of Antiquaries of London under its William and Jane Morris Fund."St Mary and St Peter’s Church, Harlaxton (Lincs)", The William and Jane Morris Fund, The Society of Antiquaries of London. Retrieved 7 May 2014
Architecture Exterior St Mary and St Peter's is of ironstone and limestone-ashlar construction. It comprises a chancel, north and south chancel side-chapels, nave, north and south aisles, west tower and a south porch, and is of Perpendicular style with elements of Early English and Tudor.
The church four-stage tower is of Gothic Decorated style below, and Perpendicular above. The lower early 14th-century three stages are of coursed ironstone with limestone ashlar cornerstone dressings; the top late 14th-century stage is entirely ashlar, as are the battlements, pinnacled at each corner, and the crocketed recessed octagonal spire. The spire is topped by a finial with weathercock, and at its lower part contains a single run of twin-light pointed arch lucarnes, these on each alternate face, each set-in gables with a globed device attached above. The tower is drained by one gargoyle centrally placed on each side below the battlements. Each corner is buttressed to the full height of the tower on the west side and from the nave and aisles upwards on the east. Clasping buttresses run to the top of the third (belfry) stage, and angled buttresses run over the fourth. The tower first stage contains one large pointed arch Decorated window, this on the west side, with no hood mould and plain glazed with twin lights (lancets) leading to trefoil heads. The central mullion runs to an oval rosette with quatrefoil insets, characteristic of c.1250-1310 Geometrical tracery. The second stage contains small and narrow single light windows on all but the east side. The third stage lies above the line of the nave, with the achievement of a single window on all sides. Each of these windows are of similar pattern to the bottom stage west window, but smaller, with transom—separating horizontal bar—and with an attached hood mould. The fourth stage windows are elongated versions of the third stage, but with added label stops at the spring of the hood mould. The tower sits on a simple moulded socle (plinth) topped by a cill band—angled projection that allows water to flow from a building face—which continues around the whole church apart from the south aisle.
The nave is defined only by the clerestory above the abutted north and south aisle roofs, and a gable surmounted by a cross running from the clerestory's coped parapet as it meets the east chancel. The clerestory contains vertically segmented clear glazed twin-light windows, four each north and south, all containing panel tracery—a Perpendicular style of upright straight openings above lower lights—within flattened arches with hood moulds with label stops.
Attached to the nave are the north and south aisles. The early 15th-century north aisle is of string-coursed ashlar, buttressed, with four windows of same appearance and style—rectilinear with inset three lights of simple round head, diamond-pattern leaded clear glazing, and flattened hood moulds. Three windows are placed on the north wall, the fourth serves as the aisle west window. Between the two north wall western windows is a simply moulded and slightly pointed door opening with hood mould and label stops, and a carved finial above. Within is a face-hinged oak door. The north aisle parapet is deeply crenellated to the same style as the tower battlements. Above the windows runs a moulding, defining the roof edge at the base of the parapet, holding two gargoyles which drain the aisle roof. Two double-stepped angle buttresses support the aisle on its north wall, with a third diagonal buttress at the north-west corner.
The south aisle shows a plain parapet above coursed ironstone with ashlar edgings reflecting the lower stages of the tower. Three three-light windows, one plain glazed to the west of the porch, two stained to the east, are of same style to those of the north aisle, but with added facetted details between the head arches and the frames. The 1858-rebuilt ashlar south porch, which Pevsner describes as "imitation Early English", is entered though a pointed arch moulded opening supported by three columns, with a hood mould with label stops above. The porch roof parapet is coped and runs into the south aisle parapet, and above the doorway opening rises to a shallow pointed gable surmounted by a cross of Celtic appearance. On the west and east side are flat headed windows with twin lights, clear glazing, and tracery, and hood moulds with personified label stops. Inside the porch the nave door, with its elaborate hinges and handle surrounds, is set within a pointed arch opening surrounded by a multi-facetted moulded arch supported by columns with floriate capitals.