St Peter's Church, Upper Slaughter

St Peter's stands above the ford and footbridge over the River Eye in Upper Slaughter, with the castle mound below it on a bend of the stream and the village square at its gate. Its nave is twelfth century, its tower is built from the reused stones of a Norman one, and its north side holds the chapel of the diarist Francis Witts. It is listed Grade II*.

History

There was probably a church here by the twelfth century, perhaps the eleventh, though Upper Slaughter is not in Domesday Book. The four-bay nave and its north aisle are twelfth century, and the listing records that in a time of civil war the Abbot of Gloucester complained that the church had been used for defence. The Victoria County History notes an attack on the church around 1145, in the war between Stephen and Matilda, which may explain why the arcade was rebuilt late in the century. The first rector on record is of 1251.

The tower

In the fourteenth century a west tower was built into the west bay of the nave, reusing the Norman doorway, vault and corbels of an older tower that possibly stood one bay further west, and it was finished in the fifteenth century with battlements and pinnacles. The listing calls its arch and vault an impressive jumble of Norman stone.

Francis Witts and his family

Francis Edward Witts was rector from 1808 to 1854 and kept the journal published as The Diary of a Cotswold Parson. His family were rectors from 1808 and lords of the manor from 1852. In 1822 the church was made into a Georgian preaching box, with the north aisle widened and a flat ceiling. When Witts died in 1854, a mortuary chapel was added north of the chancel by Francis Niblett, a Gloucestershire gentleman architect, in what the listing calls a wayward Decorated style. In 1877 J E K Cutts restored the church, putting back a Gothic look and reusing much of the old fabric.

What to look for

Start in the south porch, where carved twelfth-century fragments are set into the walls. Then look for:

• The tower arch and vault at the west end, built from reused Norman stone, and carved Norman corbels higher up the tower
• The three-bay arcade with its lightly carved scallop capitals, and Niblett's chancel arch in a modern Norman style
• The Witts mortuary chapel, with its marble tomb, signed Waller, which cost £1,000, faded Hardman glass and surviving tiles and painted ceiling
• In the chancel, a fourteenth-century Easter sepulchre filled by a provincial baroque monument of 1682 to Frances and Andrew Wanley, and a thirteenth-century piscina
• Two fonts, one fifteenth century and restored, the other octagonal, and stained glass by Clayton and Bell

Upper Slaughter is one of England's rare doubly thankful villages: Historic England records that everyone who went from the parish to both world wars came home: 25 in the first, 24 men and one woman, and 36 in the second.

Visiting

St Peter's is open every day and free, and the church welcomes visitors who come simply for the quiet. No hours are published, so come in daylight. Upper Slaughter is busy at weekends and in summer; early morning or a weekday out of season is calmer.

Getting there

Upper Slaughter is reached by lanes about a mile upstream of Lower Slaughter, north-west of Bourton-on-the-Water. There is no public car park and no public toilets in the village; walkers usually park in Lower Slaughter and come up the Wardens' Way. No timed bus calls, but the Robin, a minibus you book ahead, serves the village. On foot, the walk from Lower Slaughter loops round by the church, and the Bourton, Upper and Lower Slaughter walk and the longer Bourton, the Slaughters and Naunton walk both pass it.

Nearby

The castle mound is just below the church, and the Manor House, Grade I, is a short way south. Round the square, the cottages were remodelled by Edwin Lutyens in or after 1906. Lords of the Manor, once the Witts family's home, has been a hotel since 1972. Downstream, Lower Slaughter has St Mary's Church, the Old Mill and the Slaughters Country Inn. Upper Slaughter appears in our story on Cotswold film and TV locations.