St Peter's Arts Centre, University of Central Lancashire

PRESTON

SD5329 ST PETER'S SQUARE 941-1/6/266 (North side) 12/06/50 St Peter's Arts Centre, University of Central Lancashire

GV II*

(Formerly Listed as Central Block of Lancashire Polytechnic Arts Centre) Formerly known as: Church of St Peter FYLDE ROAD. Church, now Arts Centre. 1822-5, by Rickman and Hutchinson, steeple 1851-2 by Mitchell (Pevsner); altered. Sandstone ashlar (roof concealed by parapet). Nave with north and south aisles, west porches at the ends of these, chancel with added north organ house and south vestry, and south-east steeple in angle between aisle and chancel. Decorated style. The 6-bay nave has square-headed 2-light clerestory windows with cusped lights and hoodmoulds with figured stops, an embattled parapet, and at the west end a small 2-light window with cusped mouchette tracery, tall embattled corner turrets, and a large crocketed bellcote on the apex. The buttressed aisles (6 bays on the north side and 5 on the south) have 2-centred arched 3-light windows with cusped circular and mouchette tracery in alternating designs, and hoodmoulds with figured stops. Attached at the east end are 2 tall rectangular porches with a lower link between, all with 2-light windows and embattled parapets, the south porch with an arched south doorway and the north porch now linked to a C20 glazed extension. The chancel has (inter alia) a large 2-centred arched 5-light window with mouchette tracery, and embattled corner turrets. All the windows have small geometrical-patterned cast-iron glazing. The 3-stage tower, with angle buttresses and south-west stair-turret, has a 3-light window to the 1st stage with reticulated tracery, bands of blind arcading to the 2nd stage, a 3-light louvred belfry window in each side with cusped tracery and crocketed ogival hoodmould, an embattled parapet with crocketed corner pinnacles and arched flying buttresses pierced with mouchettes, and a crocketed spire with lucarnes and weathervane. INTERIOR: 5-bay aisle arcades of octagonal columns with moulded caps carrying moulded 2-centred arches which have linked hoodmoulds with figured stops; large chancel arch in similar style; galleries on 3 sides, filling the west bay but set back under the aisles, carried by delicate cast-iron segmental arcading on slender columns, with cusped decoration to the soffits and cusped quatrefoils and mouchettes in the spandrels, and square-panelled front with cusped decoration in the panels; wall monument to Thomas German (d.1847) in south aisle, in Gothick style; tiled floor in base of tower, square, with buff, blue and red foliated designs and inner border with continuous lettering in Gothic script "THIS TOWER AND SPIRE WERE ERECTED BY THOMAS GERMAN ALDERMAN AND TWICE MAYOR OF THIS BOROUGH IN MEMORY OF ELLEN HIS WIFE AD MDCCCLI". History: Commissioners' church, cost »6900, plus German bequest of »1000 for tower.

Listing NGR: SD5341929925