Explore Religious Heritage Across Europe

The most outstanding Norman church

Gayton le Wold is a small village nestling in the Lincolnshire Wolds, to the west of the market town of Louth. So small in fact it doesn't appear on some of the larger scale maps. The brick church of St Peter sits peacefully on the hillside of this rural hamlet. It is hard to believe that only 150 years ago the Wesleyans and Free Methodists also had chapels situated in this tiny village.

The beautiful church of St Peter in Great Haseley dates mostly from the 13th and 14th centuries and includes some fine Early English and Decorated features.

There was probably a church on this hilltop overlooking the River Exe in late Saxon times, but the first stone church was erected shortly after the Norman Conquest and consecrated in 1073. Very little remains of the Norman building. The church today is almost entirely a 15th century rebuilding, with tall Perpendicular windows making it spacious and light. The tower and chancel are 15th century, while the south aisle and Greenway Chapel are 16th century.

St Peter's was completed in 1879 to a design by GE Street as the founding mother church of Bournemouth. The building incorporates work by some of the finest Gothic Revival architects and artists, including Street, George Frederick Bodley, Ninian Comper, Arthur Blomfield and Edward Burne-Jones, with stained glass and frescoes by Clayton and Bell. The chancel has been described as 'one of the richest Gothic Revival interiors in England'.

St Peter's is a relatively new church, being built because the old parish church of St Andrew, only seating 190, was too small. It was consecrated in 1893 by Rt Revd Dr Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln.

One of the Rylstone's most iconic buildings is St Peter's Church. Designated as Grade II listed by English Heritage, it was constructed between 1852 and 1853 and has a gritstone exterior in a style known as 'churchwarden gothic'.

St Peter & Paul-Kirche is located in Betzendorf, a village in Niedersachsen about 10 miles south-east of Lüneburg, and on the eastern edge of the famous “Lüneburger Heide”.

A lovely village church with interesting features to be discovered including early 14th century stained glass depicting three medieval family shields of the Percy, Umfraville and Beaumont families. The yellow silver stain used in this stained glass is quite indicative of its very early age.

The tall, graceful spire is visible for miles around. It was used by sailors and others returning by boat along the river Great Ouse to the port of St Ives as a welcoming landmark, and it may even have had a lit beacon to aid their way. Lying on the Via Devana, the Roman road that linked the army camps at Godmanchester and Cambridge, Fenstanton was the site of a Roman villa. It is also in the Domesday Book.