Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Wickham Road, Lewisham

The Church of St Peter was built between 1866 and 1870 to serve the expanding population of Brockley in mid-19th-century south London. The church was designed by Frederick Marrable (design 1865), with the west tower completed later by Arthur Blomfield under a faculty of 1890. The foundation stone was laid on 25 May 1866.

The building is constructed of ragstone laid in a crazy-paving pattern with Bath stone dressings, and has red clay tiled roofs. It forms an imposing presence at the corner of two roads, dominated by a substantial west end that has been compared to a Westwerk of medieval German churches. This effect arises from robust vestibules flanking the west tower, creating three entrances—one through the tower and one in each vestibule providing access to an internal gallery. The central entrance breaks forward beneath a gable. Above the entrances, a band of blind shafted pointed arches stretches across the full width of the west end. Each vestibule has a gable containing a large traceried spherical triangle window. The west window of the tower comprises three components (1-light/2-light/1-light configuration), each with Geometrical-style tracery. The vestibules also feature north-south oriented gables with two-light windows. The top stage of the tower is octagonal with battlements, and on its cardinal faces are two-light belfry windows; the intermediate faces have buttress-like features.

The nave comprises three bays with very large three-light clerestory windows displaying varied tracery in the style of around 1300. The aisles are lean-tos with three-light graduated cusped windows without hoods. Large buttresses between the bays are internal to the aisles and form a key element of the church's interior architecture. Substantial transepts have windows in two tiers: upper tiers with three pairs of two lights (with hoods) and lower tiers with five single-light windows (without hoods). The chancel, lower than the nave, terminates in a three-sided apse and contains a series of two-light windows with tracery from around 1300. To its north is a complex including a vestry and substantial parish room, with the vestry having a triangular-shaped east end between the parish room and chancel.

The interior is a highly impressive and inventive space with a wide nave and passage aisles cut through the buttresses. The surfaces are bare brick—mostly yellow with red also used to create polychromatic effects. The west end features a gallery extending across the entire width of the church, set on three broad arches reflecting the tripartite exterior design, with an upper tier of arches framing the vestibule and tower west windows. Bold transverse brick arches span the nave, linking to the buttressing system, with sturdy black and white mottled marble wall shafts rising from painted corbels and bearing stone foliate capitals. The roof between the arches is three-tiered, boarded, and features arched wind-braces. The nave has three bays of low arches to the passage aisles with notched brickwork and octagonal piers. A further east bay is much wider with tall arches to the transepts containing raked galleries filled with seating. The chancel, much narrower than the nave, is viewed through a tall arch with a red-brick head and a pair of detached marble responds. The chancel is covered by red and yellow brick vaulting.

The stone pulpit (north) and lectern (south) are ornate high Victorian pieces forming a pair, though regrettably painted. In the sanctuary, the walls below the windows are beautifully decorated with tiles, mosaic and opus sectile, probably dating from the late 19th century. The centre contains a reredos depicting the institution of the mass, flanked by figures of saints Peter and Paul, with further figures of saints on adjacent walls and patterned tilework of various colours on flanking walls. The font is chalice-shaped with a variegated brown marble bowl on a cylindrical marble stem. Extensive stained glass fills nearly all the windows, much of it by Clayton and Bell. The church was reordered in 2006 when 19th-century seating in the nave and chancel was removed and a new floor covering laid down.

The church is notable for its unusual and imaginative planning and massing and the great spaciousness of its nave, which at over 40 feet wide is much wider than most Victorian churches. This was achieved by reducing the aisles to mere passages and supporting the wooden roof on stone arches rather than on timber principal rafters. The use of passage aisles, which became very popular in 20th-century churches, was a novelty in the mid-1860s when St Peter's was designed, having just come to prominence at G E Street's church of All Saints, Clifton, Bristol. The architectural press commented on St Peter's: The Builder noted that the stone transverse arches greatly enhanced the monumental effect, while the Building News considered the church more successful as an engineering achievement than an architectural one.

Frederick Marrable (1818–72) was articled to Edward Blore and is best known as the first superintending architect to the Metropolitan Board of Works, a post he held from 1856 (when he became a fellow of the RIBA) to 1862. He designed the MBW's offices (now demolished) in Spring Gardens, which became the first County Hall for its successor, the London County Council. Marrable, an associate of the Institute of Civil Engineers, died suddenly of heart disease aged 54.