Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter and Associated Church Hall

This is a large, powerfully massed town church built in 1885 by James Brooks, located on a corner site in Hastings between a busy main road and mixed residential housing. The building is constructed of red brick with limestone dressings, and has slate roofs with red clay crested ridge tiles.

The church follows an Early English Gothic style characteristic of Brooks's work, employing plate tracery and lancets throughout. The plan comprises a nave with five bays, chancel, north and south aisles, south porch, west porch, northwest baptistry, south chapel, and a north vestry with stair turret.

The exterior is distinguished by its architectural strength and clarity. The nave's five bays are demarcated by flat brick pilasters and topped by a tall clerestory with paired lancets and a small mandorla above, all under a brick hoodmould. The aisles are lean-to structures with low side walls containing pairs of single-light windows per bay. At the northwest corner stands a polygonal baptistry with a steeply pointed roof. The vestry and organ chamber form a double transept arrangement with high transverse gables, each bearing a tall two-light window echoing the clerestory design. A circular turret with stone roof rises to eaves level at the northeast corner of this block. The chancel's east end, which fronts directly onto the road, features a large five-light window composed of grouped lancets with small blind circles in the spandrels beneath the hood. The south chapel, set beneath its own gable, displays an unusual stepped stringcourse running over and between its one-light windows and has its own south doorway. The west end is dominated by a four-light west window with a king mullion and quatrefoils, beneath which sits a shallow gabled west porch with paired doors under trefoil heads.

The interior walls remain unplastered red brick, conveying great strength and solidity. The tall clerestory, which comprises roughly half the nave's height, and the large west window flood the interior with light. The five-bay arcades feature round brick piers with stone capitals and plain slightly chamfered arches. The capitals are noteworthy for their originality—described by Nairn and Pevsner as "round penetrated by truncated pyramids upside down." The very tall stone chancel arch spans the full width of the nave and is carried on wall shafts, dramatically emphasizing the building's verticality. The arches flanking the chancel differ from those in the nave, employing squat clustered piers, responds, and multi-moulded arches. Two plain brick openings on the north side at first-floor level were designed for the organ. The nave features a tall panelled wagon roof with main trusses consisting of tie-beams and crown-posts, while the chancel roof is a boarded wagon shape with moulded ribs. The southeast chapel also has a ceiled wagon roof.

The most impressive interior feature is the combined pulpit, screen, and lectern at the chancel entrance, executed in polished mottled pink and grey marble laid in stripes. The pulpit's semi-circular drum is pierced with quatrefoils and bears heavy dog-tooth ornament at its base and on the corbelled base beneath. The lectern closely resembles the pulpit but lacks the piercings. A combined triple sedilia and piscina occupies the chancel, featuring shallow cusped arches beneath straight-gabled hoods. The chancel's east wall below the east window is lined with alabaster. The reredos is a notably tall and narrow composition with three gables, enclosing a figure of Christ flanked by two adoring angels. Twentieth-century seating occupies the chancel, and extensive stained glass fills the east window and aisle windows throughout.

Adjacent to the church to the northwest is a hall, probably contemporary with the church and likely also designed by James Brooks. The hall's body runs east-west with two gabled transepts on the north side connected by a low linking structure. In contrast to the church's Gothic character, this building employs minimal Gothic detailing, though pointed thirteenth-century-style windows appear in the east wall of the main hall. The roofs are modern ribbed clay tiles. The hall forms a significant group with the church.

Further west stands the large former vicarage, now Streatfield House Day Care Centre, which is tile hung on the first floor and features irregular window groupings. South of the church's south aisle stands a wooden Calvary, though the figure of Christ is now missing.

South of the south chapel is a wooden Calvary, now missing its figure of Christ.

St Peter's was erected to serve the Anglican population of this expanding area of St Leonard's during the late nineteenth century. James Brooks (1825–1901), the architect, is among the most respected Victorian church architects. Born in Wantage, Oxfordshire, he was articled to London architect Lewis Stride from 1847 and commenced independent practice in 1851. His reputation developed through a series of inner London churches begun in the early 1860s, which addressed the pressing need for dignified, spacious church accommodation on modest budgets in rapidly expanding poor suburbs. He became architect to the Canterbury diocese from 1888. St Peter's dates from the later stages of Brooks's career and demonstrates his design powers undiminished. The muscular, almost severe Gothic style that established his reputation through his inner London churches some twenty years earlier remains evident, producing a church of nobility and strength.