The Old Chancel at the east end of the church is the original location of the high altar. When the church was re-ordered in 1960 this area was screened off by the reredos which stands behind the present altar. Today the old chancel serves as the vestry for the clergy and choir and it is not open to the public. During Butterfield’s restoration of the church, many ancient grave slabs were removed from this area, but some historic mural monuments have survived:
Murray Brothers
A 1649 memorial to James and John Murray, the sons of Anne Murray, a prominent Royalist during the Civil War who lived at Berkhamsted Place. Anne was exiled for her Royalist sympathies (she was in a plot to protect the life of the young Duke of York, later King James II, from the Roundheads). The brothers apparently died young, James in 1627 and John in 1634. The inscription describes them as “youths of the most winning disposition who lived and died at Berkhamsted Place”.
Ann Cowper
A tablet to the memory of the mother of poet William Cowper, Ann, who is buried close by (although the grave stone was relocated to the north transept in 1870). The poignant inscribed verse was written in tribute by her friend Lady Walsingham.
Charles Gordon
Charles Gordon lived in Braco, a village in Trelawny, Jamaica. He bought Pilkington Manor, a house which once stood on the High Street in Berkhamsted, and was buried at St Peter’s in 1829.
Windows
The small lancet windows contain fragments of the only pre-Reformation glass in St Peter’s. These include two royal coats of arms and the arms of Henry Chichele, Archbishop of Canterbury 1414-1443. The great East Window is detailed at (22).
