The earliest record of a church on this site is in the Domesday survey of 1085 when St Peter’s Abbey at Westminster owned the village and over 900 years ago this church was also dedicated to St Peter. The only physical evidence that the Norman church stood on the same site is the presence of part of a round-headed Norman arch, which can be seen embedded in the rough outer stone surface of the Chancel north wall.
In 1770 Lord Delaval, owner of the Doddington estate, realised that the church was in a ruinous state of disrepair, so much so that the only solution was to carry out a complete rebuild. He saw the rebuilding of the church as the opportunity to make a serious architectural statement and his choice of the Gothic style certainly related to the rather sombre and romantic interior of the newly refurbished Hall. To create his new Gothic church Lord Delaval demolished most of the old building, except the north wall of the Chancel and nave together with the Lady Chapel from which he borrowed the style for his new church. A tower and spire over the church entrance completed his composition, and he integrated the whole design by running the battlements of the Lady Chapel round the whole building, and decorating its skyline with crocketed pinnacles.
