St. Peter & St. Paul Eckington - Part 2

A view west along the nave to the tower

Having discovered that the church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Eckington wasn’t open on a Saturday, a few days later I took advantage of the regular Coffee Morning on a Tuesday morning to look around its interior. 

A view from the south door

Once inside, I immediately noticed that the north aisle is plastered, which obscures any evidence in the masonry which shows the difference in age of the east and west ends, but the stonework that blocks the north doorway is still exposed. 

The east window to the north aisle

At the east end of the north aisle, the organ chamber is separated from it by a Decorated Gothic window with reticulated tracery, which is C14 in date and is the only window in the church that remains from this period. 

A view east along the nave to the chancel

Looking eastward down the nave, the two eastern columns of the arcades are circular and are dated to the early C12, with the two western columns being octagonal and thought to have been built about fifty years later. 

An ornamented capital in the north arcade

Also, although the arches are of the same style, the two at the west end are slightly higher than those to the east and the capital to the easternmost column of the north aisle is the only one that has any decoration. 

The east respond of the south arcade

The later C12 extension of the nave coincided with the enlargement of the chancel and the building of the tower, both of which have very similar Early English Gothic arches. The east respond to the south aisle has a capital with crockets, which Pevsner relates to the chancel arch and attributes a late C12 date and being slightly earlier than the tower. 

Various finials

Wandering around the church, I came across various crocketed finials that once decorated the exterior of the church. These, along with castellated parapets, are normally associated with C15 Perpendicular Gothic additions and these were probably removed during the work undertaken in 1763, which is in Neo-Palladian style. 

The stairway to the rood loft and the hagioscope

On the south side of the chancel arch, there are the remains of a stairway leading to the rood loft and there is a double hagioscope on its north side – a feature that I have never seen before. 

The monument to George Sitwell and his wife Margaret

In the chancel, there are numerous memorials to the Sitwell family, with that to George Sitwell and his wife Margaret being the most elaborate, with figures carved in alabaster and an indeterminate dark stone used for plain surfaces. 

The monument to Sitwell Sitwell and his wife Caroline

The monument to Sitwell Sitwell and his wife Caroline, by White Watson, comprises a partial fluted column of Ashford Black marble, with a Corinthian capital of an indeterminate stone, with a tall Derbyshire crinoid marble plinth and a scrolled panel of white Carrara marble.

The plinth to the Sitwell Sitwell monument