page_title: Bromyard
section_title: St Peter's, Bromyard
hierarchical_section_title: Bromyard / Architecture / St Peter's, Bromyard
caption_attribution_description: Bromyard Church (St. Peter), 22 June 2015. Founded c.840 as a Saxon Mimster, with only a carving of St. Peter and a consecration stone surviing, these being above the porch doorway. The present church is mainly 12th Century Norman with later alterations. Unusually, the aisles are approximately the same width as the nave and abut the transepts, lessening their visual impact. Pictured is the north aisle (13th Century Early English) looking towards the north transept.
context_page_description: Bromyard is a market town in the Bromyard and Winslow civil parish of the county of Herefordshire, England. It is situated in the valley of the River Frome. The 2011 census gives a population of approximately 4,500. It lies near to the county border with Worcestershire on the A44 between Leominster and Worcester. Bromyard has a number of traditional half-timbered buildings, including some of the pubs, and the parish church dates back to Norman times. For centuries there was a thriving livestock market. The town is twinned with Athis-de-l'Orne, Normandy.
context_section_description: St Peter's Church is a large cruciform building described in 1574 "with many cathedral churches no fairer" with parts dating back to Norman times, including an effigy of St. Peter, with two keys, over the main (reset) Norman south doorway.  Most of the exterior is early 14th century. An Anglo-Saxon minster church existed before the present St Peter's Church.  No physical remains survive, but the minster and manor are mentioned in a document of 840 AD. Inside the largely 14th century church lies a Norman font.  The common element to the design was Y-shaped tracery throughout, chamfered roof beams of timber.  The Norman nave was marked by capitals in the Decorated Style with lozenges, rosette and chevron.  There was a genuine Tympanum in the north transept.  The chancel was restored in the 14th century with ubiquitous window tracery. The oldest part of the church, the south arcade may have been built in the reign of Richard the Lion Heart, when Norman knights began to build churches in the county. The columnaded north arcade was built under King John characterised by leaf crockets, quatrefoils, and double-chamfered beams.
  Bromyard church was early favoured by generous benefactors, as the Hereford Red Book of the Exchequer testified in 1277.  The Lancastrian knights Sir John Baskerville and Sir Hugh Watcham donated two chantry chapels; with an unusual lavacrum in the south transept.  At about the same time a Ricardian founded a chantry school for the parish, which was saved at the reformation on appeal in 1547 after 150 years of existence.  Of the 17 grammar schools in the county only four survived the suppression of the monasteries, reflecting directly future development of the towns. Bromyard borough was the second town in Herefordshire owing to the woollen trade, but was taxed and chantries confiscated by the Crown under Queen Elizabeth I.
  After the English Civil Wars the church fell into near fatal dilapidation for about a century.  Much of the church was substantially restored by the Victorian architect Nicholson and Sons to the transepts in 1887, and the stalls beneath the tower, revealing the roof clerestory.  A war memorial was added in 1919.  Thus was followed by extensive repairs to the stained glass in the 1930s by A J Davies and later by A K Nicholson.  Inside the church monumental slabs litter the chancel walls with worthies of Bromyard: John Baynham (1636), Thomas Fox (1728), Laetitia Pauncefoot (1753), Roger Sale (1766), Joseph Sterling (1781), Bartholomew Barneby (1783), James Dansie (1784), Roger Sale (1786), Abigail Barneby (1805), Edward Moxam (1805).  At the Millennium the churchyard was cleared of monumental inscriptions.
caption: Bromyard Church (St. Peter) (19170646955) interior
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