St Peter's Church, Lowick

St. Peter's Church, Lowick
St. Peter's Church, Lowick, Northamptonshire
Coordinates: 52°24′42″N 0°33′25″W / 52.41163°N 0.55706°W / 52.41163; -0.55706
Country	England
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Broad Church
History
Dedication	Saint Peter
Architecture
Heritage designation	Grade I listed building
Style	Perpendicular Gothic
Groundbreaking	circa 1300
Completed	1460
Specifications
Length	83 feet (25 m)
Width	40 feet 5 inches (12.3 m)
Administration
Parish	Lowick, Northamptonshire
Diocese	Peterborough
Province	Canterbury

St. Peter's Church, Lowick, is the Church of England parish church of Lowick, Northamptonshire, England.

Although the church has early 14th-century origins, it is mainly late 14th and early 15th century, being built for the Greene family of Drayton House. A large heraldic shield dominates the nave, and the chancel bears the arms of the Greene family, and also that of John Heton, rector from 1406 to 1415. The list of clergy (see below) shows the appointments from Nicholas de Nevil in 1217, so the current building must have been a replacement for an earlier one.

The tower is topped with an octagonal lantern, flying buttresses and 12 pinnacles with golden weathervanes. Simon Jenkins noted that "the tower with its octagonal top is visible for miles around, a forest of pinnacles topped by golden weathervanes. From a distance they seem to flutter in the sun, like pennants summoning us to some forgotten Tudor tournament".

An entry in the churchwardens' accounts records taking down the rood-loft and filling the holes in May 1644. In July 1645 payment was made for the "glazing of the windows when the crucifixion and scandalous pictures were taken down".

There were Victorian restorations in 1868–72 by Richard Herbert Carpenter and William Slater which consisted of repairs to roof and walls and re-seating, and further work in 1887. The reredos was made in 1930–31 as a memorial to Sackville George Stopford-Sackville, who died in 1926, to the design of the architect William Randoll Blacking. More repairs were carried out by the architect Eric Arthur Roberts in 1973–75.

The north aisle windows have reset panels of a Jesse window from around 1330–40 depicting 16 figures. Some medieval glass also survives in the south chancel windows. There are six windows with 19th-century stained glass in the north and south aisles and also in the chancel.

In the chancel floor is the gravestone for John Heton, rector of Lowick from 1406 to 1415. The slab has a border inscription

Hic jacet Dominus Johannes de Heton quondam rector ecclesie de benyfelde et nuper de Lufwyck cujus anime propicietur Deus Amen. Credo quod Redemptor meus vivit et in novissimo die de terra surrectus sum et in carne mea videbo deum salvatorem.