St Peter and St Paul Church in Wymering is, along with the Cathedral, the oldest church in Portsmouth. It was founded some time before 1129 as a place of worship for the tenants of a Norman manor and built on lands belonging to Southwick Priory, as was the chapel of Thomas a Canterbury, which was to become the Cathedral.

The oldest part of the existing building (the North arcade with its large round pillars) dates from the twelfth century (1180). The South arcade was added some years later and its style of architecture is quite different in that the pillars are slender and topped with octagonal stone. The chancel was added later and first used on Easter Day in 1400. There were few changes in the building then until the eighteenth century when a singing gallery was added. Patronage passed during the reformation from Southwick Priory to the Lords of the Manor of Southwick.

In the nineteenth century, however, the building was beginning to show signs of decay. A description of the church in 1844 reads, ‘An ancient and mouldy smell pervades it; the walls are damp and the chancel like a sombre cave...the pews are painted white with red borders and are sufficiently high to bury children and young people when seated..Below the pulpit is a desk for Clerkie Blackman and a seat for the singing boys. Times without number I have see Clerkie bring his ponderous hymn-book with great effect over the head of an inattentive or sleepy singing-boy.’

The patronage of the living was bought by the Francis Nugee in 1847 and it has remained in the family ever since, the present patron being Mr. Edward Nugee, QC. Francis’ son Andrew was installed as the Vicar. He died suddenly in 1858 and the living was passed to his brother, George Nugee, who came from St Barnabas in London and who was a keen supporter of the Oxford Movement. George Nugee took Wymering to his heart. Working tirelessly for the people of the parish and the soldiers at Hilsea, he founded schools, introduced local health and welfare facilities and social services, and used the family fortune to restore the parish church. George Edmund Street, one of the most celebrated architects in England whose buildings include the Law Courts in the Strand at Cuddesdon Theological College in Oxford, was commissioned to for the restoration in order to retain many of the original features and to provide the liturgical space necessary for Anglo Catholic worship.

George Nugee lived in Wymering Manor, the oldest building in Portsmouth and reputedly the most haunted house in England. The present Vicarage, (which dates from the eighteenth century and which has a ceiling plastered by Napoleonic Prisoners of War) was home to one of the first religious communities in the Church of England since the Reformation, the Sisterhood of the Virgin Mary and a cottage in the Vicarage grounds accommodated the Brotherhood of St. Augustine, men training for the priesthood.

The Churchwarden at the time of the Restoration was Admiral Francis Austen, one of Nelson’s captains and brother of Jane Austen. His grave is in the churchyard, as are those of members of his family, graves which were restored by the Jane Austen Society of America.

The Church has been altered little since 1861. It is not only an architectural gem, but its ancient walls bear witness to centuries of prayer. It is very much the spiritual home for the people of Wymering, many of whom talk of their time as choristers or Sunday School members, with fond memories of weddings, baptisms, funerals, festivals and feasts of generations gone by.

150 years ago the parish of Wymering was outside the boundaries of the Borough of Portsmouth, and it was huge. Wymering, Paulsgrove, Cosham, Highbury, Hilsea and Hilsea Barracks were all part of the parish, and the Vicar was also responsible for the parish of Widley which stretched over the Hill almost to Denmead.