Church of St Peter is a Grade I listed building in the Wakefield local planning authority area, England. First listed on 22 November 1966. A Perpendicular Church. 1 related planning application.

Church of St Peter

WRENN ID
upper-entrance-bittern
Grade
I
Local Planning Authority
Wakefield
Constituency
Ossett and Denby Dale MP: Jade Botterill (Lab)
Country
England
Date first listed
22 November 1966
Type
Church
Address
Church of St Peter, Church Street, Woolley, WF4 2JU
OS grid reference
SE 319 130
Coordinates
53.61274, -1.51875
Source
Historic England listing

Also on this page: related consents · flood risk · radon risk · weather exposure · detailed attributes ↓

Description

The Church of St Peter is a church dating primarily from the 15th century, with a south aisle added in the 16th century and a restoration around 1870. It is constructed of large, well-coursed dressed stone with a 20th-century Bradstone roof and is designed in the Perpendicular style. The church comprises a west tower, nave, north and south aisles, a south porch, a chancel, and north and south chancel chapels.

The two-stage west tower is embattled with diagonal buttresses and offsets. The west doorway has a double-channelled surround with a hoodmould, above which is a three-light window with cusped lights and panel tracery. On the south face of the tower, four arrow-slits are positioned above one another to light the stairwell. Two-light belfry openings have cusped lights, with a quatrefoil above each face, and a clock face is set under the north side. Rainwater spouts project from the base of the parapet, accentuated by corner and central crocketted pinnacles.

The four-bay nave and aisles feature diagonal buttresses. The north aisle is articulated with offset buttresses, with the second bay being blind; the remaining bays have three-light windows with double-chamfered surrounds, square heads, and cusped lights. The west side of the north aisle mirrors this design. The largely rebuilt south aisle, dating from around 1870, has a two-light window to the left of the 15th-century porch, within the second bay. The porch has a segmental-pointed doorway of two orders with a small niche above, diagonal buttresses, and a coped gable, all restored around 1870. Inside the porch is a fine oak king-post roof with a boarded ceiling, moulded rafters, and a bratished wall plate; the inner doorway has been re-cut. The windows have round-headed lights with sunken spandrels.

The division between the nave and chancel continues as an offset buttress to the chancel chapels, which project forward. The south side has two bays, and the north side has three bays, both with three-light windows. A priest's door has a round head to the south and a pointed arch to the north. Lean-to roofs extend throughout. The east end features a shallow-arched three-light window to each chapel and a taller five-light window with reticulated tracery, likely entirely from around 1870. Offset buttresses are topped with pinnacles, and a coped gable displays a cross finial.

Inside, the aisle arcades have pointed arches of two orders, supported by octagonal columns with moulded capitals; the north arcade is lower to accommodate the shallower roof pitch. A re-used 12th-century tympanum, carved with a Lamb and Cross and a foliated border, is incorporated into the doorway of the rood loft. A spiral stair features a Romanesque spiral-twist column. Three-bay arcades lead to the chancel chapels. The south chapel contains a 16th-century carved screen (partially obscured by an organ), a cusped piscina, an original coved ceiling with heraldic painted bosses, a wall monument from around 1682 to the Beaumont family, and a funeral hatchment. The north chapel has a 19th-century screen, a copy of the one in the south chapel, a tomb niche, and an east window with fine 15th-century stained glass. A wall monument commemorates George Wentworth of Wooley, dating from around 1660. The south aisle's west window contains stained glass dating from around 1871, potentially by Morris and Co.

Original pews remain with carved bench ends displaying panel tracery at the rear of the church; 19th-century pews replicate this design, while the front pews incorporate re-used 15th-century carved Gothic bench ends. A 19th-century waggon roof covers the nave and chancel.

Local climate

Church of St Peter receives an average of 860 mm of rain a year. This makes it wetter than 62% of listed buildings in the UK. Its exposure to wind-driven rain is lower than that of 60% of listed buildings.

It experiences an average of 39 freeze-thaw cycles a year, more than 75% of listed buildings. Of these, 21 follow at least 1 mm of rain in the preceding 48 hours. Average temperatures at this location have risen by 0.3°C per decade since 1991.

Averages for 1991–2020; temperature trend 1991–2025. Figures describe the wider area (a grid cell of roughly 10 km), not the individual site. Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.

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