Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

A former Anglican church, disused at the time of survey in 2002 and situated amongst social housing, predominantly in tower blocks, close to Coventry City Centre. A new church of St Peter has been built alongside.

The church was built in 1840-41 to the designs of Robert Ebbles in a pre-archaeological lancet style with some Perpendicular elements. It is constructed in Flemish bond red brick with brick dressings. The plan comprises a shallow chancel, a nave with a west gallery (with stairs in blocks flanking the west end tower), and an east end vestry.

Exterior

The windows have flat-faced hoodmoulds with square terminals, some of which have been dressed off. The shallow sanctuary features a parapet and a four-light east window in rustic Perpendicular style. The eight-bay buttressed nave has a parapet and large lancet windows. The three-stage porch and tower have angle buttresses with set-offs and a parapet with crow-stepped battlements. The west doorway is double-chamfered with a Tudor arch, with a large three-light west window above and tall lancets to the belfry. The square-on-plan stair blocks serving the gallery on either side have set-back buttresses, plain parapets, and smaller Tudor-arched doorways. The east end vestry is low with a blocked triple lancet window.

Interior

The sanctuary is defined by a moulded stone arch, the mouldings dying into plain responds. The chancel is marked by very plain timber rails with a memorial date of 1944. The roof comprises eight bays with nine closely-spaced trusses of tie beam and queen post design. Short arched braces below the tie beam are decorated with pierced quatrefoils, supported on moulded stone corbels, with cusped braces from the queen posts to the collars. The roof is plastered behind the rafters. The roof is unexpectedly substantial for its 1840-41 date.

The west gallery is very deep and canted forward in the centre. Its front has been renewed, but the supports—two rows of cast iron columns with additional columns at the angles—are presumably original. Cantilevered stone stairs to the galleries have iron balustrades with plain verticals and ramped handrails. Arched doorways at the west end of the nave lead to the gallery stairs, and a large chamfered arch in the centre leads into the porch.

The font is painted white with an octagonal bowl carved with blind trefoils and an octagonal stem, with a font cover dated 1966. The timber pulpit is damaged and has a 1914 memorial date but appears to be integral with wooden screening forming a south-east vestry in the corner of the nave; the screening is dated 1929 and incorporates a projecting tester to the pulpit. The nave benches have an unusual design with open backs and shouldered ends pierced by roundels. Some gallery benches with very slender ends and panelled backs may be original, along with simple benches along the back wall of the nave. A brass eagle lectern is present. Two timber altars, probably early 20th century, are located in the interior; one at the east end of the nave stands before a panelled First World War memorial incorporating lists of names.

The church is listed Grade II as an unusually substantial brick town church of 1840-41 with tower. The interior has a good, though not outstanding, roof for its date and unremarkable fittings.