Benchmark - St Peter - Swallowcliffe, Wiltshire - U.K. and Ireland Trigpoints on Waymarking.com

Cut benchmark on St Peter's church, Swallowcliffe.

"The original church of SAINT PETER stood in Common Lane beside the stream which rises in the village. It was apparently built of coursed ashlar and consisted of a chancel with north transept, a nave with north and south aisles, and a north-west tower. Only the south aisle extended the length of the nave. The nave piers of the 12th-century church may have survived in the earlier 19^th century. In the 14^th century the south nave arcade may have been rebuilt on those piers, and the transept, with a three-light north window, was built. In the later 14^th century or earlier 15^th a west nave window was inserted, and the tower, crenellated and buttressed, was built. Its lower storey formed a porch which was entered through a 12th-century doorway reset in the north wall. A west gallery may have been built in the 17^th century when a square three-light window was inserted in the lower west nave wall. The building was subject to flooding and in 1843 a new church also dedicated to Saint Peter, which may have incorporated material from the old, was built in 12th-century style to designs by G. G. Scott and W. B. Moffat on higher ground north of Rookery Lane. It consists of a chancel with south transept, an aisled nave, and a crenellated and buttressed south-west tower with a conical spirelet and south door. The 14th-century stone effigy of a knight, which is perhaps of Sir Thomas West (d. 1343), who founded the chantry in 1335, was removed from the south-east corner of the nave of the old church to the porch of the new."

SOURCE - (Visit Link)