St Peter's Arts Centre, University of Central Lancashire

St Peter's Arts Centre, University of Central Lancashire, originally St Peter's Church, was built between 1822 and 1825 by Rickman and Hutchinson, with the steeple added between 1851 and 1852 by Mitchell. It is constructed of sandstone ashlar, with the roof hidden behind a parapet. The church comprises a six-bay nave with north and south aisles, west porches at the ends of the aisles, a chancel with an added north organ house and south vestry, and a south-east steeple set in the angle between the aisle and chancel. The design is in the Decorated style.

The nave features square-headed two-light clerestory windows with cusped lights and hoodmoulds with figured stops, an embattled parapet, and a small two-light window with cusped mouchette tracery at the west end. Tall embattled corner turrets and a large crocketed bellcote are also present. The buttressed aisles, with six bays on the north and five on the south, include two-centred arched three-light windows with cusped circular and mouchette tracery in alternating designs, and hoodmoulds with figured stops. Attached to the east end are two tall rectangular porches with a lower connecting link, all with two-light windows and embattled parapets; the south porch has an arched doorway, and the north porch is now linked to a 20th-century glazed extension. The chancel features a large two-centred arched five-light window with mouchette tracery and embattled corner turrets. All windows contain small geometrical-patterned cast-iron glazing.

The three-stage tower, with angle buttresses, includes a south-west stair-turret, a three-light window to the first stage with reticulated tracery, bands of blind arcading to the second stage, a three-light louvred belfry window with cusped tracery and crocketed ogival hoodmould on each side, an embattled parapet with crocketed corner pinnacles and arched flying buttresses pierced with mouchettes, and a crocketed spire with lucarnes and a weathervane.

Inside, the five-bay aisle arcades feature octagonal columns with moulded caps carrying moulded two-centred arches with linked hoodmoulds and figured stops. A large chancel arch is in a similar style. Galleries fill the west bay but are set back under the aisles, supported by delicate cast-iron segmental arcading on slender columns with cusped decoration to the soffits, cusped quatrefoils and mouchettes in the spandrels, and a square-panelled front with cusped decoration in the panels. A wall monument in the south aisle commemorates Thomas German (died 1847) in a Gothick style. The tower has a tiled floor with buff, blue, and red foliated designs and an inner border featuring continuous lettering in Gothic script, which reads "THIS TOWER AND SPIRE WERE ERECTED BY THOMAS GERMAN ALDERMAN AND TWICE MAYOR OF THIS BOROUGH IN MEMORY OF ELLEN HIS WIFE AD MDCCCLI". Originally a Commissioners’ church, the building cost £6,900, with a bequest of £1,000 from Thomas German for the tower.