History of St Peter’s Church
St Peter’s is one of the most celebrated parish churches in England. The oldest parts – its extraordinary Anglo-Saxon tower and baptistery – were built in the early 11th century, and in the medieval period the church was enlarged more and more, eventually reaching six times its original size.
But apart from being an architectural gem, St Peter’s is also an archaeological treasure trove. When the church and churchyard were excavated in the 1970s and 1980s, the remains of about 2,800 people were recovered, presenting a unique portrait of a community over almost 900 years.
The Anglo-Saxon church
In a prime position on the east coast, beside the Humber, Anglo-Saxon Barton was wide open to Viking raiders, traders and settlers. The settlers, originally pagan, soon adopted Christianity, helping to fuel a great boom in church building, of which St Peter’s was a part.
The stone church visible today was probably first built about 1020, and comprised a tall tower flanked by a baptistery (for baptisms) to the west and a chancel (where the altar stood) to the east. The ground floor of the tower originally served as the nave.
The tower has distinctive Anglo-Saxon features, such as the use of large stones for doors and windows and a series of vertical stone strips around the tower. This was a technique derived from timber-framed buildings, but here it is decorative.
Some of the stone was reused from Roman buildings and was probably transported by river from Yorkshire.
There was room here for only a small congregation. The church was probably built to serve a major residence to the east, which was a forerunner of the present manor house.
Norman and medieval additions
Domesday Book records in 1086 a flourishing market town at Barton with its own church, presumably a reference to St Peter’s.
About this time the tower was heightened with a new belfry. This survives, but a large new Norman nave and chancel, revealed by excavations, were soon swept away by further rebuilding. First the nave was widened with aisles, and over the next four centuries the chancel, aisles and entrance porches were all rebuilt, sometimes more than once, on an ever larger scale.
The various phases of building are evident in the different materials and styles of Gothic architecture. Notable features include the rare early 14th-century Crucifixion window above a side altar and a series of carved portrait heads, grotesques and ‘Green Men’ among lush foliage.
Later history
By the mid 16th century St Peter’s had grown to six times the size of the original Saxon church. Nearby St Mary’s (which was officially a chapel under St Peter’s) matched it in size and in splendour.
During the course of all these changes – which also included restorations in the Victorian era – the original tower survived intact.
In 1819 this was the first building in England to be identified as Anglo-Saxon, by Thomas Rickman, the historian who defined the various styles of Saxon, Norman and Gothic architecture.
St Peter’s church today
Modern Barton could not sustain two large churches and St Peter’s became redundant in 1972, passing into the care of the state in 1978. St Mary’s remains in use as the parish church.
The fame of St Peter’s spread as a result of an intense programme of archaeological investigation carried out between 1978 and 1984. This unravelled the history of the church, revealing how it was rebuilt and enlarged several times.
It was as part of this research that about 2,800 burials were investigated. They have provided the largest sample of skeletons for study yet available from any Englislh church site.
The buried community
When the church and graveyard were excavated, the remains of 2,803 individuals were recovered. The burials range in date across nearly 900 years, from the late 10th to the mid 19th century.
At the time, this was the most comprehensive study made of a parish church in England. The archaeologists at St Peter’s led the way in approach to burial archaeology, carefully uncovering every aspect of the evidence to build a remarkable chronological sequence of burials.
Research into the people found at St Peter’s has informed global studies into health, diet, injury and environment. Skeletal remains carry an astonishing record of the individual – allowing us to study, for example, age at death; the effects of historic disease, diet and surgery; and ancestry and origin, helping us trace where people came from.
Just as important in building a picture of the community over time are the insights gained about burial traditions. Some coffins from St Peter’s had been preserved in waterlogged conditions, allowing the wood to be dated, and helping to form a rounded picture of the people buried in them.
The deceased community of St Peter’s continues to attract specialists across many fields of science. St Peter’s has the capacity to provide new insights into the human story of Barton and its community.
The skeletons have been reburied in a specially built on-site ossuary, or bone repository, to protect them.
Facial reconstruction reveals Conquest manFurther reading
Advisory Panel for the Archaeology of Burials in England, Guidance for Best Practice for the Treatment of Human Remains Excavated from Christian Burial Grounds in England (2nd edn, 2017) [pdf download]
Bryant, GF, The Early History of Barton-upon-Humber (English Heritage, London, 1994)
Rodwell, W, St Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber (English Heritage guidebook, London, 2007)
Rodwell, W and Rodwell, K, ‘St Peter’s Church, Barton-upon-Humber: excavation and structural study 1978–81’, Antiquaries Journal, 62 (1982), 283–315
Find out more
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Visit St Peter’s Church
Visit this famous church to discover its characteristic Anglo-Saxon features, and explore the ‘Buried Lives’ display, which vividly presents the research on the human remains.
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Download a plan
Download this pdf plan to see how the church of St Peter’s developed over time, and the location of the excavated burials.
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Buy the guidebook
This fully illustrated guide traces the history, archaeology and architecture of St Peter’s Church and its burials.
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Episode 170: Curating human remains at St Peter’s Church
Hear about how human remains are cared for at St Peter’s Church in this episode of the English Heritage Podcast.