South Door Arch - St Peter - Brooke, Rutland
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SMacB
N 52° 38.554 W 000° 44.738
30U E 652527 N 5834895
A Norman arch above the south door in the porch of St Peter's church, Brooke.
Waymark Code: WMZ1G4
Location: East Midlands, United Kingdom
Date Posted: 08/26/2018
Views: 0
"Brooke is a small hamlet located on a minor road a few miles south of Braunston-in-Rutland. The parish church of St Peter boasts a beautifully carved Norman doorway. The nave arcade and the font are also Norman, while the tower was added in the 13th century.
The tower is unusual in that each of its three stages is wider at the top than at the bottom.
You enter through a very unusual Norman doorway. The unusual feature is that the doorway rises to a pointed arch, something not introduced into England for centuries after the church was built. How could this be?
It seems likely that the doorway was indeed built in the 12th century as the traditional Norman carving on the moulding suggests, but that sometime in the 15th century the rounded arch needed strengthening to stop it from falling apart, and the top of the rounded arch was transformed into a pointed arch for support. The ancient wooden door itself is supported by two iron straps.
The interior is a mix of Norman and Elizabethan features, or, as the excellent church guidebook puts it, 'Brooke has an Elizabethan church with a Norman spine'.
The largely Elizabethan furnishings are blessedly unaltered. For this reason, St Peters was included in Betjeman's list of the top 100 churches in England. There are late 16th-century oak furnishings, including panelled screens and box pews. One interesting Elizabethan highlight is an unusual 'Communion Room' in the chancel."
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