Steeple Aston - Church and Chapel

Church and Chapel

The Church of England parish church of Saints Peter and Paul is 13th century, with subsequent Perpendicular Gothic alterations, and the architect John Plowman restored it in 1842. The parish church is the source of the Steeple Aston cope, an important piece of 14th century embroidery now on loan to the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.

The church tower has a ring of eight bells. Richard Keene of Burford cast the three oldest bells in 1674 and 1675. A further bell was cast in 1700 by one of the Chandler family of bell-founders from Drayton Parslow in Buckinghamshire. Two bells were added in the 19th century cast by the Whitechapel Bell Foundry: one cast by Thomas Mears II in 1827 and the other, the present tenor, cast by Mears and Stainbank in 1879. This completed a ring of six bells, with the smallest of the Keene bells being the treble. In 1986 the Whitechapel Bell Foundry cast two slightly smaller bells which were added as a new treble and second bell, increasing the ring to eight. SS Peter and Paul has also a Sanctus bell, cast in 1701 by Henry Bagley II, who had foundries in the Northamptonshire villages of Chacombe and Ecton.

Steeple Aston had a small number of recusants in the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries and a small number of Quakers in the 17th century. Methodist meetings were held in the home of one of the villagers for a few years early in the 19th century but had ceased by 1817. Meetings were held in 1838 and 1839 to hear Primitive Methodist preachers and were well-attended despite uproarious organised protests. A Methodist chapel in South Street was opened in 1852. It was used for worship until 1968 when it was converted into a shop.