Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a Commissioners’ Church built between 1797 and 1829, designed by R. D. Chantrell on land given by the Earl of Dartmouth. Around 1885, W. Hamstock (of Batley) re-ordered the church and added a chancel. It is constructed of hammer-dressed sandstone with a Welsh blue-slate roof.

The church comprises a west tower, nave, chancel, a south transeptal chapel that now houses the organ, and a north vestry. The architectural style is Early English lancet, with the chancel exhibiting a mixed Gothic Revival style. The three-stage tower features quoin pilasters, a pointed-arched doorway with roll moulding and a steep hoodmould with a trefoil at its apex. The second stage has a lancet window with a hoodmould, and the third stage has a three-light belfry opening (the outer lights are blind). The tower is topped by a broach spire. Short, lean-to bays with lower roofs, each featuring a narrow pointed-arched doorway, extend from both sides of the nave. On the nave's south side are seven bays of lancet windows with a continuous hoodmould. The gabled transept has angle buttresses and a three-light window with cusped lights surmounted by a traceried rose. A coped gable with kneelers and a finial tops the transept. The two-bay chancel, under a lower roof, has angle buttresses and a five-light East window topped with three traceried roses and a coped gable with a finial. The north vestry, set at a right angle to the main building, has two double-chamfered mullioned windows with ogee lintels and a coped gable. A tall central ridge stack rises from the roof.

The interior is largely plain. The roof features large moulded tie beams supported by curved brackets, with sexfoils piercing the spandrels. Galleries have been mostly removed, except for a west gallery supported on octagonal cast-iron columns. The wide 4-centred chancel arch rises from short granite colonnettes with foliated capitals. A similar arch, now blocked by the organ, leads from the chancel to the transept. The chancel includes a waggon roof and a finely carved chancel screen dating from around 1900, featuring colonnettes, an arcade, and triangular finialed pediments pierced with open trefoils. A panelled reredos is also present. The church contains pitch-pine pews and choir-stalls with carved poppy-heads and Early English arcades. The seven-sided, carved stone pulpit features Early English arcades and a foliated frieze. An octagonal-shafted font made of Caen stone completes the interior.