Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a Grade II* listed church located on Manchester Road in Ashton-under-Lyne, built between 1821 and 1824 by F. Goodwin for the Church Commissioners. Constructed from ashlar with a slate roof, the church features a three-sided gallery plan, a west tower, and a small canted vestry that serves as a chancel. It is designed in the Gothic revival style.

The church has a seven-bay nave with a weathered plinth and a coped parapet. Each bay is adorned with a three-light transomed window that has Perpendicular tracery and a hoodmould. The fine tracery is prefabricated in cast iron and painted to resemble stone. Weathered buttresses, diagonal at the corners, are topped with crocketed pinnacles. The east end features a rose window above the vestry, and bold octagonal pinnacled piers define the nave and 'aisles', although there are no actual aisles.

The impressive three-stage tower has set-back buttresses that transition to octagonal corner piers at the upper stages, topped with pinnacles. It includes a door in the first stage, a three-light west window, clock faces below gablets, tall paired lancet belfry openings, and an elaborate arcaded parapet.

Inside, quatrefoil cast-iron columns support the gallery, which has an arcaded parapet and has been partitioned off beneath the west end in the 20th century. Most of the gallery benches remain. The side walls beneath the gallery feature a tall panelled dado, and the east wall is also panelled, with the panelling reportedly sourced from Manchester Cathedral. The ceiling is panelled and transitions to a ribbed vault above the gallery. The church contains a stone font, an organ with an elaborate case, and stained glass in many windows, with the east window made by Evans of Shrewsbury. This church stands as a particularly imposing and elaborate example of a Commissioner's Church.