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The most outstanding Norman church

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.

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.

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'.

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'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.

Today, the Brough of Birsay is a small tidal island off the Orkney mainland. Between the 600s and 1200s AD, the area was settled by the Picts and Norse.

An unusually complete Victorian interior with a breathtakingly elaborate chancel, featuring cusped and gilded roof rafters.

St Peter's is in a windswept location, in open farmland, with ancient yew trees and a patina of great antiquity. Abutting the north side of the tower, and entered from the church, is a rare medieval priest's house.