St Peter's Upper Church

St Peter’s with spire – pre 1984.     Taken by Mike Miller from his own kite.

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Much of this page was researched by Jill Marshall, former church warden,  and has been submitted by John Hawker.

This is very much a work in progress – more to come.

To come – a brief history of the building.

To come – a chronological list of clergymen, vicars, wardens, vergers, etc.

Notes on changes to the church    by John Hawker

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Below- extract from Outlook  June 1992 on the reordering of the upper church.

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The following donated photographs  (a) to (g) need proper annotation.
The only information supplied so far has been that they show the church prior to ‘re-ordering’.
This is church talk for a re-arrangement of furnishings and fixings.   More details would be appreciated.

(a) Donated by John Evans

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(b)  Donated by John Evans

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(c)   Donated by John Hawker

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(d)    Donated by John Hawker

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(e)   Donated by John Hawker

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(f)      Donated by John Hawker

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(g)   Donated by John Hawker

The Clock Tower / Bell Tower

Periodically, the clock mechanism needs some adjustments to maintain its credibility as a time piece.  In 2017 this duty is undertaken by Phillip Murrell and John Hawker who shin up the tower’s ladder to an upper storey chamber for the re-calibration exercise.  They have observed quite a collection of names and dates of previous visitors to this upper chamber and Philip has started to record the names. With no visitors’ book it appears to have been a tradition to leave your name as a mark of your presence in the tower.  Through chance conversations around the village it was suggested having this information placed on the village history web site, and so an expedition team was assembled to ascend the tower and photograph the clock mechanism and some of the handywork of past visitors.

The photos were taken in the clock section of the tower, housing the mechanism, not the clock face. Nearer the roof is the bell section housing the single bell and the single clock face.  The bell is activated by a single rope passing through two tower floors down to the entrance hall. The clock mechanism drives the clock hand spindles up to the clock face.  There is also a set of obsolete connecting wires running from the mechanism area toward the bell above.  This was from the days when the clock mechanism was able to strike the bell at set intervals (probably on the hour).  The clock and its mechanism date back to the building of the church in 1847.  A later addition was a modern electric motor that raises the weight needed to drive the mechanism, thus eliminating the need to send parishioners into the tower to wind the clock every day.

Below is a set of photographs (more to follow on subsequent visits) and an incomplete list of noted visitors (and dates if known).

This section is still a work in progress – more detail to follow.

( Better quality pictures to follow )

List compiled by Phillip Murrell   2017           Photographs by Tony Nicholls     2017

IMPORTANT !!!     This needs your help.  All contributions will be credited.
If you have any further information or corrections please contact me –
Tony Nicholls      email:   history@pembury.org……