St Peter's Church

From the road St Peter's looks very much as it has looked for many hundreds of years - a medieval Parish Church; but you may have noticed that there is no stained glass in the windows and the windows themselves look very new. But once inside, what a surprise! You find a modern, open church, with the pews arranged so that the people gather around the Table; yet you will notice that the building shows many varied styles of architecture, for St Peter's goes back to Saxon times. It is built on the site of a small Saxon church which is said to have been burnt down about 750. On 5th May 1979 the church was burnt down for a second time, this time by an arsonist, leaving only the walls, the charred timbers of the tower and the cracked bells. In the rebuilding of the church great care was taken to save what could be preserved and at the same time to enlarge and modernise the building by extending some 25 feet into the churchyard on the south side.

From "A Short Guide to St. Peter’s Parish Church Yateley, Hampshire" 1987

We have already alluded to our own champion Lichgate at Yateley. The Yateley gate is not only the oldest in Hampshire, but probably, with one exception, the oldest dated gate in England. Abbotts Kerswell in Devon is dated 1603; Yateley 1625. But is seems likely enough that these are both dates of reparation, not of erection. Besides, 1625, Yateley bears the dates 1800 and 1884. The design of the gate is very simple, and the structure very charming. The roof is covered with oaken shingles; and the gate which is double, is hung on a revolving pillar, allowing a gangway on each side. An iron weight and chain fastened to a pulley at the top of the pillar keeps the gate closed. There is a precisely similar construction at Rostherne in Cheshire, where the Lichgate is believed to be at least as old as the sixteenth century, and also at Burnsall in Yorkshire. Yateley then redeems Hampshire from the charge of mere modernism.

From Winchester Diocesan Chronicle, March 1911

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