St Peter & St Paul, Exton

St Peter and St Paul is a Grade I parish church in Exton Park, Rutland, slightly apart from the village, in the Diocese of Peterborough.

Overview

Historic England records a large medieval parish church restored by J. L. Pearson, with coursed squared stone, a clerestory and fine traceried windows by Pearson. Wikipedia and Pearson’s restoration list date the work to 1851–53, after lightning struck the spire in 1843 and damaged the nave and gallery. The church stands within the park of Exton Hall, long the seat of the Noel family, Earls of Gainsborough.

Pevsner wrote that few churches in England show English sculpture from the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries so profitably. The monuments include Robert Kelway’s alabaster tomb of 1580; the huge black-and-white marble monument to Baptist Noel, 3rd Viscount Campden (1683), completed at least in part by Grinling Gibbons; and later Noel memorials by Joseph Nollekens. The late fourteenth-century octagonal font has trefoiled niches and carved heads in the spandrels.

Further Information

• Historic England list entry 1177714
• British Listed Buildings: Church of Saint Peter and Saint Paul, Exton
• North Rutland Churches