Former Convent Of St Peter

The Former Convent of St Peter is a convent, built between 1898 and 1908 in a free Perpendicular style by J.L. and F.L. Pearson. It is constructed of red brick with stone dressings and has plain tile roofs with diagonal brick stacks. The building is three storeys high and has an asymmetrical, buttressed front of 14 bays, featuring stone-dressed windows, some mullioned and others traceried. Notable features include square bay windows extending across three floors on the left, a central, battlemented porte cochere with an arched and studded plank door, and a four-stage tower, with the upper two stages restored. The tower's crowning stage is stone arcaded and has a clock on each of the four faces. Four bays are set back to the right, with a three-bay cross-wing break at the right-hand end. The right-hand return front mirrors the style and incorporates a round porch with a central pier and pointed arches on either side. A chapel is located to the rear of the main building.

The chapel's crypt features five bays with round pier arcades and Byzantine-style mosaics at the east end. The chapel choir has four bays with round pier arcades and stone rib vaulting, with three apsidal lobes rising from the crypt at the east end. A chapel to the north consists of four bays with a wooden barrel vault roof, while the nave has three bays and a corbelled stone gallery at the west end above the door, with an ambulatory running around the entire chapel. The interior fittings include late 19th-century priests’ chairs, a marble altar canopy with red multiple shaft columns supporting a carved and crocketed trefoil hood canopy.