Parish Church Of St Peter

Parish Church of St Peter, Fleetwood

The Parish Church of St Peter is a parish church built in 1839-41 by Decimus Burton and extended in 1883 by Paley & Austin. It was constructed as an integral component of the new town of Fleetwood, laid out by Burton for Sir Peter Hesketh-Fleetwood between 1836 and 1843.

The church is built of coursed and dressed sandstone, rock-faced to the nave and tower with freestone dressings and slate roofs. The plan comprises a nave with a west tower, transepts, a chancel, a separately roofed north organ chamber, and a south chapel.

The broad nave and tower are designed in the simple Gothic style of the early 19th century. The two-stage squat tower, which was originally designed to carry a spire since removed, has diagonal buttresses with gabled offsets in the lower stage and polygonal buttresses in the upper stage. These upper buttresses are carried up as corner polygonal turrets in the corbelled and embattled crown. Entrances are located in the north and south walls. The west window consists of triple pointed lights. The bell stage features paired openings with louvres and linked hood moulds. The buttressed nave is divided into five narrow bays by gabled buttresses built against pilaster strips with a corbel table. It has tall pointed windows with a sill band. The eastern end, added in 1883, is in a more developed Early English style with steeper roofs than the earlier work. The transepts have triple stepped windows with shafts (the north window is blocked) and shallow lean-to west porches. The east windows vary in design. The chancel east window has five lights, with the central light taller than the others, and tracery circles above the outer pairs of main lights. In the south chapel, the east wall has four blind arches on shafts, two enclosing small quatrefoil windows, and the south window has four lights. The organ chamber has an east window of two lights with a hood mould.

The interior is relatively plain, with a plastered round chancel arch, though the narrow tower arch, rising to gallery level, has a continuous moulding. The polygonal nave ceiling has moulded ribs on corbelled brackets, with two ceiling-rose ventilators. The chancel has two-bay arcades to the chapels and transepts with octagonal piers, moulded capitals, and arches. The transepts have open roofs incorporating semi-circular braces above the tie beams with boarded panels behind defined by moulded ribs. The chancel has a closed wagon roof with moulded arched braces and plaster infill. The walls are plastered. The floor is partly stone-paved with raised floorboards below the pews.

Principal fixtures include a slender octagonal font on a tall stem, probably from 1841. A west gallery with a panelled front stands above a glazed screen added in 1994 to create a separate parish room at the west end of the nave. The nave benches have moulded, shaped ends, and the choir stalls have simple panelling, probably dating from the late 19th or early 20th century. A polygonal pulpit and reading desk are dated 1960. The organ, built in 1924 by James Binns of Leeds, incorporates the Binns patent tubular pneumatic action. The Te Deum east window and other early 20th-century windows are by Ward & Hughes, while the south transept window of St Peter is by R.B. Edmundson & Son, dated 1860.

Decimus Burton (1800-81) was the son of a London builder who began his career in 1821 and retired in 1869. His architecture was characteristically undogmatic and scenic, though capable of being tough-minded when necessary. He is particularly associated with urban planning, having assisted his father in the design of terraces at Regent's Park and at St Leonards, East Sussex. His major work in this genre is the Calverley Estate in Tunbridge Wells, begun in 1828. Although best known for work in the Greek Revival style, all his churches are in Gothic styles, of which St Peter's is representative. At Fleetwood, a scheme only partly completed, Burton also designed the North Euston Hotel, Queen's terrace, the Custom House, and two lighthouses. The spire was removed in 1904.