History:

• In the 11th century, St. Pega’s church was built.
• In the 13th century, John de Wynbeck erected a small chapel, successor to St Pega’s cell.
• In 1714, St Pega founded the monastery but it was dissolved circa 1870.
• In 1783 William Sutton was the owner of the Hermitage Chapel.
• In 1880 the chapel was remodelled.
• In the 19th century the chapel was restored and made into a reading room.
• In 20th century the chapel became a convent chapel.

Architecture:

The Hermitage, Peakirk is the traditional site of the St Pega’s cell, but was also recorded as the Hermitage of St Bartholomew, and it is possible that the cell’s site was at Crowland.

The church of St. Pega consisted of a chancel with north vestry and north chapel, a nave of 3 bays with aisles and south porch, and a bell turret on the west gable of the nave. Its architectural history goes back to pre-Conquest times, as the Eastern angles of an aisles nave of the 11th Century. It was 5.33m (17ft 6in) wide and its length was 10.7m (35ft).

In 1170 a north aisle was added and later a chapel.  The west wall was also built around this time. Around 1220 a south aisle was added to the nave along with a south porch. The north vestry was added in the 14th century and the chancel again rebuilt in the latter part of the 15th century, about 1475-80.The bell turret was added around the last years of the century.

The chancel measures internally 7.8m (25ft 6in) by 3.9m (12ft 9in) and has an east window of 5 trefoiled lights with tracery, under a 4 centred head, and 2 south windows of 3 cinquefoiled lights under 4 centred heads. These windows date from 1480.

In the south wall is a plain arched piscine, probably re-used from a former chancel, and in the north wall a square locker rebated for a door. A small 4 centred doorway opens onto the north vestry to the chancel and a modern west doorway leads to the north chapel, which is lit on the east by a window of 2 trefoiled lights. Adjoining the vestry on the east is a 12th century north chapel, which only retains 1 feature - the arch with its rounded soffit.

The north window of the chapel has 3 wide trefoiled lights and a 15th century 4 centred head. The chancel arch consists of well-designed foliate capitals (the upper part of an architectural pillar) and a moulded square-edged abacus recessed at the angles. The arch is pointed and was rebuilt in the 13th century.

The nave of the 3 bays has a north arcade with round pillars and scalloped capitals with recessed angles. The arches are semi-circular having the same detailing to that of the north chapel except that the angle-rolls on the inner order are not keeled. The south arcade has pointed arches, moulded capitals and bases.

From the outside the south-east angle of the early nave, with long and short quoins is well seen. The north east is covered with white wash.

In the northwest corner of Peakirk village was a late 13th century chapel, successor to St Pega’s cell, without any spire or tower. The measurements of the hermitage chancel were 3.2m (10ft 8in) by 4.9m (16ft 4in), and the nave was 4.4m (14ft 7in) by 5.8m (19ft 2in). Made out of coursed stone, it has a steeply pitched plain tile roof and coped gabled ends.

It was a small medieval 2 cell building with a 15th century nave which was modernised but still maintained some if its ancient features of a 13th century shape. The east window had 3 trefoiled lights under an arched head, and in the south wall was a window of 2 trefoiled, which was ancient, and an early English style south small doorway.

There were no windows on the north side of the chapel and the nave had a stone 14th century St. Pega’s cross, on its west gable with trefoiled circles in the spaces between the arms. The shaft and base of the cross were copied from the ancient cross at Helpston. The owner of the hermitage had to repair the vestry of the church and the 2 seats at the west of it (mentioned in the registers in 1617 and in 1783).

Northeast of the chapel was an ancient hermitage, the traditional site of St. Pega’s cell, but was recorded as the ‘Hermitage of St. Bartholomew”. It is now fully restored and is in the grounds of a monastic training college, and is used as the college chapel.

Beyond the hermitage, on the east side of the road to Northborough, there was ‘Folly River”, a small osier bed and a large dike or canal which connected itself to the fen draining operation through the eastern part of the parish.

The building was listed as a Grade II building on 15th December 1955.

Social History :

• The name ‘Peakirk’ or Pega’s church derives from St. Pega who lived a solitary life as a hermitess in the same neighbourhood. She was sister of St. Guthlac, the founder of the monastery of Crowland, and she carried out the commands for his burial. A year afterwards she retired to a hermitage 4 leagues west of Crowland, traditionally identified with Peakirk, living there until her journey to Rome, where she was died in 716. She was buried in a church built in her honour, the only other church except that in this village known to exist under her invocation.
• The Hermitage, Peakirk, is the traditional site of St Pega’s cell and there is a tradition of a monastery; however Knowles and Hadcock dubiously gave it as a cell in the 8th century, refounded circa 1000 and dissolved in 1048.
• The only sure evidence of a monastery is in the 11th century when Wulfgeat became abbot in circa 1053 and obtained the consent of Edward the Confessor for its union with Crowland.