NHER 8027 (Building record) - St Peter's Church, Spixworth

Visit by E. Rose (NAU) 3 March 1977.
Very unusual building. Large nave and chancel in one with Decorated windows, some with grotesque headstops. Small south aisle with tiny pointed west door and walls of great thickness, of flint with odd pieces of tile and stone, attached to a square tower with slit windows whose top storey is in brick, which has also been used to patch the lower section. Tower cuts frame of a Decorated south door. Some windows in south aisle are Decorated, including a small one high up on south (renewed 19th century) but two (including the east one) are Perpendicular, as is the arcade to main church. Heavy and crude double stepped sedilia in this aisle. So is it the original church? Cusped piscina inside south door. Chancel has very fine Decorated sedilia and piscina in one, but much recut 19th century. Also low side-window, pointed rood stair and marks of screen. Modern vestry on north has old stone coat of arms set outside. Norman font. Large monument of 1635 to Peck, by Marshall, much cracked (seemingly worse on faces of figures than in Pevsner's photograph of 1957), helmet hangs above. Doorstep to south aisle west door may be a medieval tomb slab. Fine 18th century floor tombs in sanctuary. Good collection of 19th century memorials. Royal arms of George I. Chalice, London 1567, Paten 1721, Flagon 1730.
E. Rose (NAU), 3 March 1977.

See NHER 12271 - Parsonage Farm, adjacent, in which sections of colonettes were found reused, apparently 12th/13th century. Taken with the Norman font, are these part of the older church? However the farm appears 16th century - what alterations were made in the church at that date?
Is the Perperndicular work that late? Or is it a re-reuse?
E. Rose (NAU), 9 February 1983.

Similar material also occurs in Spixworth Hall barns (NHER 8022); could it in fact have come from Horsham St Faith priory?
The Peck memorial was restored in 1992-3. Rector reports that behind it was found a fragment of stained glass, and a sheep bone inside the memorial.
E. Rose (NLA), 26 July 1993.

Bellframe restored 1993, see reference (S2). Photographs suggests it may have been of late date, 18th or 19th century. Bells stated to be of 1350 and 1450, one inscribed by Walter Blower.
E. Rose (NLA), 9 September 1993.

In 1602 the church was recorded as 'greatlie decayed both in ye roof and walls' due to neglect by the patron. The roof collapsed in 1804 and was repaired in 1856 and the nave and aisle were restored in 1866.
In 1950 the coat of arms from the façade of the Hall was moved to the church.
E. Rose (NLA), 22 August 1994.