Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

A classical church built between 1763 and 1766 by John Wilson, with a vestry and interior restoration undertaken around 1880. The building is constructed in coursed squared millstone grit with roofs not visible. The design is based on the published plate of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Leeds (1723–27 by William Etty). This fine classical church replaced an earlier one on the site.

The church comprises a west tower, a nave with gallery, a north organ chamber and vestry, and a narrower apsidal sanctuary.

The tower is in three stages on its south side. The first stage has a corniced plinth with a blind balustrade below windows, angle pilasters, a six-panel door to the right, and a round-arched window in a keyed architrave with imposts under a square window in a plain stone surround; both windows have glazing bars. The second stage has a plinth, band and cornice, with a central raised panel containing a recessed architrave that holds a clock dated 1908. The third stage has a raised panel rising from below with a belfry opening of two pointed lights, a cill band and imposts, a cornice, and four pinnacles. The west side features a round-arched doorway with imposts, key blocks and an inner plain stone door surround. Above is a Venetian window with glazing bars and a keystone. The second stage has bands, cornice and a raised panel with a clock, a belfry opening, and pinnacles. A single-storey addition to the north is in the same style. The north side is plainer but has bands, cornices, a raised panel, a belfry opening and pinnacles.

The nave has seven bays, with the central three bays breaking forward slightly as a Tuscan distyle in antis. A corniced plinth has panels of blind balustrade under windows. Doors in Gibbs surrounds occupy the outer bays: the left door is double with eight panels and an overlight; the right doorway is infilled with a smaller six-panel door. Ground-floor windows are round-arched with imposts, archivolts and keystones; gallery windows are rectangular in plain stone surrounds, four with glazing bars. An entablature with moulded cornice and a balustrade matching the plinth complete the composition. The north side is plainer, with bays divided by stepped pilaster buttresses. Blocked doorways in the outer bays have tiestones and pentapartite keystones. Windows match those on the south front but without architraves. The east side has windows as the south front.

The apse at the east end has a channelled rusticated basement with a chamfered cornice, a corniced plinth, and giant Tuscan pilasters supporting an entablature with cornice. A Venetian window with Tuscan columns sits on a blind balustrade supporting a classical entablature with a dentil cornice, large voussoirs over the central light, and a hoodmould.

The interior contains an internal porch with fine panelling and a 18th-century double door with overlight. The nave features giant composite columns on panelled bases supporting an entablature with a key motif to the soffit, several moulded orders, and a modillion cornice. A horseshoe gallery has a raised-and-fielded-panel and corniced front. A clock in an architrave at the west end is flanked by polychromatic marble colonnades leading to the sanctuary.

The sanctuary's lower portion (dating from around 1880) has panelling with a beautifully carved, pilastered shell niche for a credence with a dentil cornice. Polychromatic marble colonnades with male heads support a floral entablature and modillion cornice. The Venetian east window has Composite column jambs and an entablature with a dentil cornice, flanked by four corniced, eared architraves framing the Ten Commandments and relief figures of Moses and Jesus. Above the window is a well-executed Royal Arms dated 1766, flanked by four cartouches with coats of arms by Giuseppe Cortese, painted angels and sculpture titles below.

The floors are laid with encaustic tiles in the nave and tessellated tiles in the sanctuary. The nave contains 18th-century panelled pews; the gallery has numbered box pews. Finely carved 19th-century choir stalls are present. A polished stone altar rail and an elaborate 19th-century polychromatic marble pulpit with an iron balustrade to the stair complete the furnishings. A panelled 18th-century tower door with stained glass panels and a fanlight is noteworthy.

An octagonal medieval font and benefaction boards stand on the landing of the gallery stairs. A fine series of monuments includes a statue to the locally born Archbishop Tillotson (1630–94) by Joseph Wilson (royal statuary), made around 1796, in an aedicule with an inscription on a bowed base. A Stansfeld family memorial (circa 1799) comprises an inscribed panel in a pedimented shouldered architrave surmounted by an urn. A Leas family memorial (1800) has a panel with relief foliage and frieze surmounted by an urn on a stand with drapery. A Henry Longfield memorial (1833) bears a panel on consoles with a bracketed entablature under relief sculpture of women weeping beside a broken column overhung by a tree. The church also contains a 17th-century portrait of Archbishop Tillotson, a memorial tablet to Crimean War dead, a series of fine coats of arms in the gallery and clerestory, a Jacobean oak table (possibly a former altar) near a door, and eight bells dated 1781.