Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a parish church situated in Swettenham village, built on a mediaeval site. The core of the church dates to circa 1717, with significant alterations made in a Romanesque style by J M Derrick in 1846 and further Gothic Revival work in 1865. The church is constructed of red brick in Flemish bond, with stone and timber framing and plastered panels. The roofs are covered in stone slate and Welsh slate.

The church comprises a four-bay nave, a two-bay chancel, and a 18th-century brick west tower. The tower features an oak boarded door set within a rebated semi-circular arched opening. Above the door is a projecting brick band supporting a stone dressed semi-circular arched window with responds, a keystone, a single wooden mullion, and lattice glazing. A clock is housed within a diamond-shaped wooden frame above the window. At the bell stage, a second brick band supports stone dressed semi-circular arched openings with louvres on each of the four faces. The tower is topped with a brick parapet, stone coping, and vase finials at the corners, with a weather vane mounted on a tall metal support.

The north aisle wall is brick and contains three replaced segmental arched windows with single mullions and lattice glazing. Three plain rectangular clerestory windows with leaded glazing are set within timber framing above. The stone slate roof of the chancel extends over the aisle, broken by a gabled dormer featuring an elliptical window, a boarded door flanked by two more elliptical windows. The chancel quoins are rusticated. The chancel window is large and square, with three wooden mullions and lattice glazing. The south aisle wall is of 19th-century coursed squared rubble and features a blocked door opening, three lancet windows with high ogee transomes, and a window with three ogee-headed lights. This aisle has a pitched grey slate roof and a solid parapet with weathered coping.

Inside, the chancel is separated from the aisles by timber posts supporting trusses, and from the nave by an arcade with Norman-style piers and early French Gothic capitals. Features include a stone chancel arch, rebated on both sides, a panelled reredos reaching to the aisle eaves, an altar rail with turned balusters, and four Gothic monuments set into recesses in the south aisle wall. Black painted commandment boards are set into the north aisle wall. A stone font is in a Norman style. The chancel roof displays trusses with cambered arch braced tie beams and king posts to high collars, with three runs of purlins and curved wind braces. Post-supported wallplates form the upper plates of the aisle catslide roofs. The nave roof features two king post trusses, single purlins, and exposed rafters.