Building record 0083000000 - ST PETER'S CHURCH, CHALFONT ST PETER

Church built early C12 (B7).
Included in original endowment of Missenden Abbey c.1133. Church collapsed 1708, re-erected 1714. In 1860 chancel again rebuilt and south chapel added. The whole Gothicized (B4).
Chantry (01:000) founded (B2).
Savagely Gothicized (B6).
Grade II+. Built 1726. Gothicised and enlarged by G E Street in 1853 to 1854 as his first polycrhome brick work. South porch 1887. On site of medieval church which collapsed in 1708. Red brick west tower with quoins, round arched belfrey windows, battlements and semi-octagonal stair turret on south elevation. Four bay nave in brick with porch to south and decorated 2-light windows. Three bay chancel and south chapel in polychrome banded brickwork with stone dressed gables, angel butresses and sill bands. Tiled roofs. Decorated windows. Interior: chancel with cusped arch braced trusses to roof. Sedilium and piscina/aumbry. Five brasses rest in north wall. Nine bay chancel screen in timber, pillar pulpit and 7 bay reredos of blind arcading. Coved flat celiing with acanthus and geometric friezes by C B M Smith, 1966, following collapse of earlier roof. Seven funeral hatchments. Many wall monuments of c18 and c19,. Stained glass by Kempe, chancel south and nave north. RCHM I 84 MON 1 (B8).
An evaluation was carried out in advance of the building of an extension to the church. Two trenches were dug within the footprint of the extension. Trench 1 was aligned E-W and revealed a robber tench filled with loose mortar, worked stone, brick and tile and a sherd of mid 18th century pottery. The trench was removed to reveal three graves. Grave 2 contained a near complete skeleton aligned W-E with coffin nails and a single sherd of 12th-14th century Medieval pottery. Grave 3 was only partially exposed, but contained a smashed skill, clavicle and vertebrae, lying W-E. Grave 8, lying W-E, contained articulated radiius, carpus, meacarples and phalanges. Two small sondages were then excavated uncovering two more skeletons with two sherds of 12-14th century pottery and a coffin nail. Trench 2 exposed a robber trench, and modern soakway. Four graves were also revealed. Grave 4 contained traces of wood and a line of regularly spaced copper alloy coffin studs and an iron coffin handle. Grave 5 was further to the north and was indicated by traces of wood and coffin studs. Grave 6 (aligined W-E) contained lower body parts. Grave 7 was only partially exposed and contained an articulated leg and foot. Finds include five sherds of sandy coarseware (12th-14th century), M40 ware (12th-14th century) and creamware (1740-1880). Other finds include two pieces of worked stone, a single stem of clay pipe, nine fragments of brick and tile, a single fragment of heavily-stained yellow/green glass, and coffin nails. The analysis of the human remains suggest that they are all post-medieval in origin (B10).