Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Birstall

The Church of St Peter is a large parish church with a medieval tower and a substantially rebuilt 19th-century body. The tower dates from around 1100, with the bell stage and crown added in the 15th century. The remainder of the church was rebuilt between 1863 and 1870 by W.H. Crossland, the Leeds architect who trained under Sir George Gilbert Scott.

The building is constructed in ashlar sandstone with a graded slate roof. Its plan comprises a nave with double aisles, a west tower that is embraced within the building, north and south porches, a lower aisled chancel incorporating a vestry and organ chamber on the south side, and a chapel on the north side.

The tower is in three stages. The lower two stages are Norman in character, with diagonal buttresses added at the bell stage in the 15th century, together with an embattled parapet on a corbel table and stout corner pinnacles. The lowest stage contains a narrow west door with 19th-century detail but earlier proportions, with relief foliage in the spandrels, below a two-light Perpendicular west window. The second stage has narrow round-headed windows on the north and south faces, above which sits a round clock on the west face. The bell stage has two-light transomed Perpendicular openings, and a sundial dated 1660 on the south face.

The remainder of the church is a single unified build in the Decorated and Perpendicular styles. The nave clerestory has four pairs of two-light Perpendicular and Decorated windows. The inner aisles, under lean-to roofs, have three-light square-headed west windows. The outer aisles are five bays with four-light square-headed windows, except for four-light west and east windows with intersecting tracery. Both nave and chancel have embattled parapets and corner pinnacles. The porches are positioned in the second bay and are near-identical, with angle buttresses incorporating diagonal pinnacles and battlements. The entrance arches have three orders of filleted shafts and vertical bands of fleurons, foliage capitals, and arches incorporating bands of foliage. Inside, the porches have pointed tunnel vaults with transverse ribs on grotesque corbels, and continuous moulded doorways with doors featuring ornate strap hinges.

In the chancel, angle buttresses incorporate statue niches with figures of saints. The east window is a seven-light Decorated composition enriched by slender shafts. The chancel aisles have square-headed three-light east windows. The south aisle contains three three-light windows and an offset doorway with hollow-chamfer surround. The north aisle is two bays with a central buttress, containing four-light and two three-light windows.

Internally, the tower contains a stepped round arch on moulded imposts, dating to around 1100. The remainder is 19th-century work in the Decorated style. The four-bay nave has arcades with octagonal piers, foliage capitals, and double-chamfer arches with linked hoods and head stops. The outer aisles have seven-bay arcades on quatrefoil piers with foliage capitals and hollow-moulded arches. The nave and outer aisles have tie-beam roofs with tracery above the beams, while inner aisle lean-to roofs also feature tracery above beams. The chancel arch has shafts with bands of foliage to the capitals and a moulded arch. The three-bay chancel arcades have piers of filleted quatrefoil section, foliage capitals, and moulded arches with angel stops to linked hood moulds. In the spandrels are corbelled niches with figures of saints below canopies. The chancel roof is three-and-a-half bays, featuring hammerbeams in the form of angels and tracery above arched braces. The chancel-aisle roofs have tie beams enriched with fleurons and tracery above. The nave and inner aisles have plastered walls, while the outer aisles and chancel walls are of exposed stone. Where visible, the south aisle has a flagstone floor with raised floorboards below pews and choir stalls. The chancel has encaustic and plain tile floors, and the north chancel-aisle chapel has a mosaic floor.

The church contains an important range of fixtures spanning the 15th to 19th centuries. The east wall displays an early 20th-century wall painting of Christ in Glory by the Pre-Raphaelite artist E. Reginald Frampton (drawings in the church suggest this was intended as the first element of a wider scheme for the nave). The octagonal font, with panelled bowl and stem, dates from the 15th century. It was discarded in 1771 but reinstated in 1841. The monumental freestone pulpit is probably Crossland's design and features figures of the Four Doctors with stone steps and a wrought-iron balustrade. The benches, probably dating to 1870, have roundels to the tops and arm rests, though benches have been removed from the aisles. A simple chancel screen has a panelled dado, tracery and iron grille to the main lights, and a moulded cornice. Medieval choir stalls have ends with blind tracery and poppy heads, with carvings on the arm rests of foliage and animals. The Victorian freestone reredos depicts the Last Supper in high relief under Gothic canopies, with saints in flanking niches and blind arcading against the east wall. Early 19th-century metal plaques bearing the Commandments, Apostle's Creed, and Lord's Prayer are mounted on the north and south sanctuary walls. Eighteenth and 19th-century wall tablets are located in the base of the tower and on the outer north wall.

The church contains significant stained glass, including two highly coloured windows by J.B. Capronnier of Brussels (1872, 1885), two by F.X. Zettler of Munich (1879), and three attributed to Kempe (1881, 1896, 1898). In the south-east corner of the outer south aisle is a brass to Mrs Popeley (died 1623), unusually depicting her in a shroud. This area also contains a repository of discarded fixtures including parts of a font, stoups, medieval grave slabs, and several 16th-century bench ends, together with two from the 17th century, one dated 1616.

The church was founded around 1100 by Radulphus de Paganell, but only the tower survives from that period. The tower was heightened in the 15th century, though nothing remains from 14th-century rebuilding. All that survives of the medieval church beyond the tower are some grave slabs, a font, and other architectural fragments. W.H. Crossland (1823–1909), who began his career as a pupil of Sir George Gilbert Scott, was responsible for the ambitious 1863–1870 reconstruction. Crossland designed several Yorkshire churches in the Decorated style and undertook important secular commissions including Rochdale Town Hall and Holloway College at Egham, Surrey. The Decorated style and taste for lavish decoration displayed at Birstall are characteristic of his ecclesiastical work. In 1997–2000, the first bay of the nave and the aisles were screened off from the main body of the church to create meeting and service rooms.