Easton

St Peter was in use as a polling station and so was technically open, but is normally locked with a keyholder listed. If I'm honest I didn't have the balls to ask if I could photograph the interior whilst voters were doing their thing and it didn't seem likely to contain much of interest; so exteriors only.

ST PETER. The W tower is of especially fine proportions. Set back buttresses, pairs of two-light transomed bell-openings, a top frieze and a spire with low broaches and three tiers of lucarnes. The S arcade is of c.1300, four low bays, round piers and double-chamfered arches. Perp nave N side with a large three-light and a large two-light window, both transorned. Perp three-light clerestory. Good nave roof with the date 1630. In the N wall, built in, the head of a small Norman window. - SCREEN. Perp, of broad one-light divisions. - BENCHES. Three old ones remain. - PULPIT. C18, of mahogany with a little inlay. It comes from South Shields. - PLATE. Cup with bowl and foot, without a stem; 1669-70.

EASTON. Looking down on a few old cottages is Easton’s church, its grey spire rising above chestnuts, its walls touched by the hand of time. It has 12th century stones in its walls, but its chancel, nave, and tower are chiefly 14th century, and the spacious porch was built when the clerestory was raised in the 16th. A very simple building, it has a fine roof with pendants hanging from great Jacobean beams, a font 600 years old, and a door with fragments of ironwork beaten by a smith a hundred years before Agincourt. The oak chancel screen is 15th century, two altar tables have 17th century craftsmanship on them, there are two old chests, some old pews and some old benches, and a coffin lid of the time of Magna Carta.

Two vicars Easton will long remember. John Bligh preached here for nearly half of last century, and Samuel Leonard was here 56 years from 1681, while five monarchs ruled in England.

Flickr.