St Peters Church Wallingford

St Peters  is a church I have been meaning to visit for a while and the chance came up to visit over the weekend but before I go any further I'll give some background on the church. The church dominates Wallingford with it's spire was built in 1763 after the earlier one which was on the site was destroyed in the civil war. The spire was added in 1776-77 and the clock was paid for by Sir William Blackstone The church was declared redundant in 1971and handed to the conservation trust in 1972.

This is the view you get of the church from Thames Street where the entrance to the church is.

The main entrance door and inside the entrance you can see a door taking you to the bell tower. I knew the guy who used to wind the clock up every day no doubt he would hav egone through the door here

Inside the entrance are three memorials

The other tow are to the Golding family

The view down the aisle as you come out of the entrance area

The font is on the right as you come into the nave

These are two of the memorial along the aisle

 

near the chancel is this huge black slab which I presume marks the Blackstone Family cript 

The chance is in the form of a apse which was added in 1909, its covered in a stage now and hides a mosaic floor under it

The  beautiful stained glass window in the chancel

not a memorial but a verse from scripture you see here in the wall

Higher up you can see more stained glass

off to one side is the church organ

and if you look of the edge you can see the mosaic flooring which is hidden by the stage

On the left is one of the windows in the chancel and to the right is the type of window you see all along the nave

Here we look up at the curves ceiling of the chancel

one side of the nave you can see this caved eagle lectern and the other is a wooden pulpit. The church also has these wonderful lights

Looking back along the nave from the altar

outside the churchyard is small with a few chest tombs

lots of old headstones

near the wall are a couple more chest tombs

some of the wording on them is still very clear

even one with railings round the tomb

looking down the north side of the churchyard

the south side is very small containing a few graves and tombs

which like the north is left with the grass growing

but it is worth the walk down to see the Blackstone memorial there

It's getting a little faded but still very readable

St peters Church

Have a great Sunday