Church of St Peter Parish Church of St Peter

St Peter’s Church stands on an elevated site in the Northamptonshire town of Raunds. The present building replaces an earlier place of worship and most of its structure dates from the 12th to the 14th centuries. Its west tower and spire rise 54 metres above Church Street, while the nave is divided from north and south aisles by double arcades of six bays. The chancel is lit by three tall windows and separated from the south aisle chapel by a two-bay arcade. The exterior walls are built of limestone with ashlar dressings and show high English Gothic decoration. Inside, the church preserves rare 14th- and 15th-century wall paintings. The northern nave wall carries fragments of the Seven Deadly Sins, the Three Quick and Three Dead, and Saint Christopher with the Christ Child. Above the western entrance is a ‘left-handed fiddler’ carving, and the nave’s west arch frames the Raunds Mechanical Clock of about 1420. A 13th-century circular font is carved with a ram’s head, and the south aisle chapel holds monuments to the Gage family. The three-manual organ, built by Peter Conacher and donated in 1893, was restored in 2006. Visitors enter through the south porch into a spacious nave lit by clerestory windows. The chancel arch carries a painted rood screen canopy, and the tower arch reveals the single-handed clock face framed by two painted angels. The north aisle displays further medieval paintings of Saint Catherine’s life, though these have faded. The tower chamber below the clock holds the brass to John Tawyer, who died in 1470, and the floor tomb of John Wales, vicar from 1447 to 1496. The church’s setting on its mound gives long views across Raunds and the surrounding countryside.