St Peter'S Church

ST PETER'S CHURCH, STAPENHILL ROAD, BURTON UPON TRENT

St Peter's is a large town church of 1881, designed by the Nottingham architects Evans & Jolly. It was built largely at the expense of the Clay family and Burton brewing firms to replace a medieval church on the site.

The church is constructed of coursed, rock-faced Derbyshire sandstone with Bath and Ancaster stone dressings. The upper stage of the tower is built of ashlar limestone. The roofs are slate except for the aisle roofs, which are leaded.

The building follows a late Perpendicular style. The plan comprises an aisled nave with a south-west tower placed asymmetrically, a south porch, and a chancel with a large and tall transeptal south chapel and a north organ chamber.

The three-stage tower is the dominant feature. The lower stage has diagonal buttresses, which on the east side rise from corbels (the north-east corbel is visible from within the nave) above lower angle buttresses. A south doorway with continuous moulding dying into the imposts and a one-light west window are in this stage. The second stage contains two tiers of small square-headed windows. The upper stage is tall and impressive, built of limestone ashlar. It features pairs of tall two-light openings under gables, with the spaces above filled with pinnacles and blind trefoils, partly obscured by clock faces. The embattled parapet has open tracery and pinnacles.

The nave and aisles have five bays. The nave windows are square-headed with ogee-headed lights, while the clerestorey has pairs of two-light windows. The aisles contain larger three-light windows. The west wall has two pointed two-light windows either side of a central buttress; a blocked west doorway survives in the north aisle. The porch entrance has continuous moulding. In the chapel and organ chamber, the north and south walls display tall pairs of two-light windows with Y-tracery and small one-light east windows. The chancel has a five-light geometrical east window and a high stone plinth where the ground level falls sharply.

The interior is wide and lofty. The arcades comprise five bays on the north side but only four on the south, due to the tower. The piers are octagonal with attached shafts to the western responds, and arches have linked hoods. North and east tower arches have continuous chamfers. The nave and chancel have hammerbeam roofs, strengthened by steel rods and with panelled and boarded undersides from collar-beam level. Tall and wide arches to the chapel and organ chamber have two orders of continuous roll mouldings. The organ chamber and chapel have similar roofs to the nave. The shallow monopitch aisle roofs have moulded beams on corbelled brackets. Walls are plastered and the east window has a shafted rere arch. Floors are plain tiles with raised parquet floors below seating and a black and white marble floor to the sanctuary.

The principal fixtures date largely from 1881. The alabaster font with a round bowl and stem is early 20th century. An older font bowl in the north aisle has a plain round bowl on a modern stem. The pulpit has open, intricate Gothic tracery. Benches have square ends with stencilled numbers. Choir stalls have ends with arm rests and rich blind tracery, with openwork tracery to frontals. The sanctuary details are early 20th century, including a communion rail incorporating a band of quatrefoils and a reredos with blind Gothic panels, richer and taller in the centre. Screens to the organ chamber and chapel incorporate panelled dado, intricate tracery to main lights, vine-trail cornices and brattishing. The Lady Chapel reredos is marble, surmounted by trumpet-bearing angels. The east window shows Christ with saints and probably dates from 1881. Other windows are 20th century. An incised alabaster slab from an altar tomb to William Dethick (died 1497) is in the tower base. On the south wall of the tower is a monument to Susanna Inge (died 1720) with scrolled sides and scrolled pediment. Other memorial tablets date from the 18th to 20th centuries.

The chancel was refitted in the early 20th century. A medieval font was in the old church in 1821 but was later removed and discarded, only to be rediscovered and reinstated in the present church in 1973.