Country Churches

120. St Peters, Petersfield

This fine Norman church with its sturdy tower stands alongside the Market Square and dominates the centre of the town. It has been restored several times, most recently in 1999 when Portland stone paving was installed and all the pews were replaced by chairs. Three areas at the west end were screened off to make a Lady Chapel, a meeting room and a servery.

The dominant feature of the interior is the magnificent 12th century Norman chancel arch with its serrated carvings with triple arches and a single one above. The three small windows high above depict Christ in Majesty in the centre, the Good Shepherd and the Light of the World. The effect is stunning.

In the north aisle are three 15th century windows with Victorian glass showing Elisha, Christ the King and St Luke. Underneath is a memorial to Stephen Worlidge a Mayor of Petersfield who died in 1635, his wife Elizabeth and their four children.

The chancel contains a reredos, donated in 1903, of mosaic and painted stone showing Christ the King flanked by six angels. On the north wall a window has been replaced by a mosaic commemorating Arthur Lyttleton a former Bishop of Southampton. The Victorian east window, showing the life of St Peter, was installed in memory of Bishop Samuel Wilberforce. On the south wall near the new choir stalls is an impressive large brass 1914-18 War Memorial and opposite a large oil painting (1933) depicting the calling of St Peter. Local people were used as models.

The east wall of the south aisle contains windows showing Christ with Mary and Martha at the Crucifixion placed there as a memorial to Mary Sumner wife of a former Rector. The south wall has two interesting military memorials. One commemorates a V.C. hero of the First World War, Commander Loftus Jones, mortally wounded whilst commanding HMS Shark at the Battle of Jutland in 1916. He is buried at Fiskerbacksie in Sweden. A smaller memorial commemorates another First World War hero, Lt Col Gerard Leachman DSO of the Sussex Regiment. He was murdered in Mesopotamia in 1920 whilst serving as a Political Officer.

At the west end of the south aisle is an attractive St Peter stained glass window placed there in 1964 in memory of the Rev Victor Wardle, Assistant Priest 1931-4. In 1942 he was captured in Singapore by the Japanese whilst serving as a chaplain to the Missions for Seamen. He died in 1945 on Banka Island whilst in a prison camp there.

The Lady Chapel at the west end is full of memorials to the Joliffe family who came to Petersfield in the 18th century from Leek in Staffordshire having made a fortune in industry. Several served as MP’s for Petersfield. One particularly impressive memorial relates to Lt George Joliffe, aged 18, who was killed on HMS Bellerophon at the Battle of Aboukir Bay in 1799 ‘contending for the brightest victory ever achieved by the British Navy.’ Scenes from the battle are carved in low relief underneath. Another Joliffe memorial commemorates Captain Hyton Joliffe of the Coldstream Guards killed at the siege of Sebastopol in the Crimean War. Numerous 18th and 19th century memorials can be seen in the servery at the west end of the south aisle, for example Batholomew Starr (1698) ‘who had great skill in surgery’. He is commemorated alongside his wife Charity ‘as well as the bodys of 12 children who died in infancy and five who survived’.

The three west end screens of Sussex oak with sound reducing glass were designed by Peter Harrison and installed as part of the 1999 restoration. On leaving the church look at the tombstone standing near the north porch. It commemorates John Small 1731-1826, a famous batsman for the Hambledon Cricket Club. He worked in Petersfield as a shoemaker, saddler and maker of cricket bats. The epitaph reads:

‘Praises on tombs are trifles vainly spent,
A man’s good name is his own monument’.

John Symonds