The church of St Peter and St Paul, Sturton-le-Steeple, is the featured church for February 2023. The village of Sturton-le-Steeple is approximately 9 km (6 miles) north-east of Retford.
The church comprises an impressive west tower, a four-bay nave with north and south aisles, south porch, north vestry, and chancel with a south chapel.
The tall tower is of four stages and is topped by a crenellated parapet and 12 crocketed pinnacles. The lower stages date from the mid-14th century and the upper stages from the 15th century.
The rest of the church is by the architect Charles Hodgson Fowler who rebuilt it after a devastating fire in 1901. He reconstructed its appearance before the restoration of 1870 by Ewan Christian. The tower and the chancel north wall are all that survive of the church from before the fire. The wall has a large Norman lancet (visible from the vestry) and contains fragments of beakhead and chevron decoration from either an arch or a doorway.
The north arcade of c.1200 and the 14th century south arcade were both reproduced during the rebuilding of 1901-02.
The stained glass windows were all destroyed in the fire of 1901 and were either replaced or reproduced afterwards.
Several monuments survived the fire but are damaged. The blackened monument to Dame Francis Earle dates from 1687 and has ‘a life-sized standing figure like a Roman matron against an altar background with columns and a segmental pediment.’ There is also a mutilated effigy with Lombardic inscription to Olivia de Montbegon, c.1236.
In the chancel is a slab to Sir Francis Thornhagh, commander of all the Parliamentarian cavalry in Nottinghamshire during the English Civil Wars. He was mortally wounded at the Battle of Preston in 1648.