St Peter, Thornton
St Peter, Thornton
St Peter’s is a Grade I Church of England parish church on Church Lane in Thornton, Leicestershire (postcode LE67 1AA), overlooking Thornton Reservoir, in the Diocese of Leicester. The Gazette record’s Leicestershire location matches this church; it is not the Yorkshire or other English Thorntons.
- Location
- Thornton, Leicestershire
- Country
- England
- County
- Leicestershire
- City / town
- Thornton
- Address
- Church Lane, Thornton, Leicestershire, LE67 1AA
- Postcode
- LE67 1AA
- Built
- C13–C16; chancel 1864
- Denomination
- Church of England
- Dedication
- Peter
- Diocese
- Leicester
- Parish
- Thornton
- Grade
- I
- Style
- Early English and later medieval; C19 chancel
- Materials
- Ashlar tower, Mountsorrel stone, red brick and half-timbering to the porch, lead roofs
- Grid reference
- SK 4683 0766
- Opening hours
- Though kept locked because of its isolation, the church keys are available from the nearby corner shop. Visitors are always welcome.
- Access
- Non-accessible toilets in church
Overview
The listing describes a parish church of the thirteenth to sixteenth centuries with a chancel of 1864. The fabric is largely Early English in character: nave and aisles from the beginning of the fourteenth century or slightly earlier, and a tall two-stage fifteenth-century west tower with a recessed spire. The five-bay nave has octagonal piers on the north and filleted quatrefoil piers on the south. Fittings include a fifteenth-century octagonal font, the base of a fifteenth-century rood screen (now in the north aisle), a painted Commandments tympanum dated 1820, and fragments of early-fourteenth-century glass in the south aisle east window. The parish notes linenfold pews from 1560 and a working clock of some four hundred years; a sixth bell was added in 2019. The south porch is nineteenth-century brick and half-timbering over an early-fourteenth-century door.
Historic England listed the church Grade I on 7 November 1966 (list entry 1074115). It is in the Junction 22 benefice with neighbouring Leicestershire parishes.