The church records over one thousand years of the Christian faith. When in 961 Queen Ediva the Queen Mother gave her manor of Peckham to the monks of Canterbury it is likely that a church was here.

However a church was definitely recorded in the 1086 Domesday Book entry for Peckham.

Remote now, it stood on the original track-way out of the Weald. The church was by-passed in 1810 when Seven Mile Lane was cut, diverting the traffic from the old highway.

The window in the north wall of the chancel shows that the Normans  worshipped here. For the development of the church see the development plan. It was probably Richard de Syssinghurst, rector, and John de Leicester, his vicar, both recorded 1287 to 1309 who endured the turmoil of the masons at work when the tower was built and who first saw the view from the top.

More disturbance to the fabric came in 1491 when John Cayser bequeathed money for ‘the making of the south window of the said church’, the large window still to be seen but minus the glory of its stained glass. There was more disturbance about 1500 when the porch was added and further drastic disturbance when the rood screen was removed during the Reformation years.

The preservation of the present fabric is a tribute to the care of the Victorian Christians who financed major restorations in 1853 and 1863 and to the care of the Churches Conservation Trust since 1973.

Margaret Lawrence©