St Mary and St Peter’s Church, Harlaxton

St Mary and St Peter’s Church stands at the eastern edge of the Vale of Belvoir, two miles south-east of Grantham in Lincolnshire. Built mainly of ironstone and limestone ashlar, it mixes Perpendicular Gothic with earlier Early English and Tudor details. The church includes a chancel, north and south chapels, a nave, twin aisles, a west tower and a south porch. Its four-stage tower rises in Gothic Decorated style for the first three stages and turns Perpendicular above. The octagonal spire, topped by a weathercock, is punctuated by twin-light lucarnes on alternate faces. The church is best known for its memorials to the Harlaxton Manor Gregory and de Ligne families. Among them are c.1410 effigies of Sir Richard Rickhill and his wife Elizabeth. The interior was restored in the 1850s and again in 1890–91 by John Oldrid Scott. Six bells hang in the tower, cast between c.1500 and 1946, with a hung sanctus bell still rung daily at 4 am and 8 pm. A close of one and a half acres was endowed solely for this purpose. Inside, the nave’s clerestory has clear-glazed twin-light windows with panel tracery. The north aisle carries four rectilinear windows and a small pointed door with a carved finial. The south aisle has a plain parapet above coursed ironstone. The chancel arch frames the sanctuary, and the south porch shelters a face-hinged oak door. The church sits within the Harlaxton conservation area, surrounded by the village’s quiet lanes and fields.