Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter

The Church of St Peter at Seaview was built in stages, beginning with the nave, north aisle and small chancel constructed between 1859 and 1862 by architect Thomas Hellyer of Ryde. The chancel was enlarged and the north vestry added around 1871. The south chapel and south aisle were added in 1920 by Stephen Salter. A vestry was added in 1973 and the east two bays of the north aisle in 1984.

The church is constructed of coursed Swanage rubble with ashlar dressings. The slate roof features bands of fishscale tiles and terracotta ridgepieces. The plan comprises a four-bay nave and north aisle with a two-bay south aisle, a two-bay chancel with south lady chapel, and a north-west porch. A small bellcote to the north aisle marks the base of a demolished spire.

Externally, the chancel projects eastward with a tall traceried window featuring a hood-mould with square corbels and three trefoil-headed lancets with three cinquefoil lights above. Offset buttresses flank the corners. The east end of the north aisle displays a double trefoil-headed window with drip-mould and square corbels. The south aisle replicates this arrangement. A small metal bellcote sits at the junction between nave and chancel. The north aisle has four lancet windows, the eastern obscured by the 1973 flat-roofed vestry with lancet and pointed arched doorcase. A 1984 link block connects the church to the church hall. The south aisle has three lancet windows and a marble wall war memorial. The vestry contains a flat-headed window and two doorcases, with the eastern one blocked. The west end of the nave features a large window with two lancets and a circular window above.

The interior displays thin scissor-braced roofs throughout the nave and aisles. The north aisle has a four-bay arcade with short octagonal piers, chamfered capitals with quatrefoils, and low pitched arches bordered in red brick but faced in yellow brick underneath. The 1871 south aisle replicates these arches over two bays. The chancel arch features short paired marble shafts with elaborately carved capitals and corbels. The chancel contains sedilia to the north and a stoup to the south.

Principal fixtures include a 1909 chancel screen by Jones and Willis in thin ironwork with gables, cusps and intricate patterns in panels and spandrels, together with 1909 oak choir stalls by the same firm. The chancel floor is laid with patterned encaustic tiles. An octagonal stone font rests on clustered marble colonnettes with a wooden cover featuring scrolled ironwork. The east window depicts St Peter with flanking figures against a background of diagonals and rosettes. The north aisle contains a William Morris stained glass window of The Good Shepherd and another window of Christ Walking on the Water. The west window features a 1906 window of St Michael. The south aisle south window is a First World War memorial window of the Crucifixion with soldiers, commemorating Charles and Philip Watson. The central window memorialises Stanley Jackson Snowden and Harold Jackson Snowden, also killed in the First World War. A further memorial window to George Dudley Austin Black, who died in 1916 at Vimy Ridge, depicts an Arthurian knight, damsel and castle with the inscription "The Young Knight defendeth the weak".

Seaview was originally part of the parish of St Helens until 1858, when William Anthony Glynn donated a plot of land known as Six Acres to build a Church or Chapel of Ease, of which he remained patron. Thomas Hellyer was responsible for numerous churches on the Isle of Wight and in the Portsmouth area and was the leading local architect of his time. The church originally possessed a spire on the north aisle, most of which was removed in the late 1960s when it became unsafe. The south aisle and Lady Chapel were built as a memorial to village men who fell during the First World War, with the south aisle completed in 1969.