Former Church Of St Peter The Great

Former Church of St Peter the Great, West Street, Chichester

Built between 1848 and 1852, this former church was designed by Richard Cromwell Carpenter, one of the most significant church architects of the early Victorian period. Carpenter (1812-55) was a leading figure in promoting archaeologically faithful Gothic architecture, working closely with the Cambridge Camden Society alongside William Butterfield. He died young and his practice was subsequently taken over by William Slater.

The building is constructed of coursed ashlar masonry with red clay tiled roofs, except for the north aisle which is slated. It is conceived as a beautifully designed essay in early 14th-century Gothic, with refined lines and details that anticipate the work of G F Bodley and his followers a generation later, typifying the late Gothic Revival style.

The church has a four-bay nave with north and south aisles, a two-bay chancel with a south aisle, a west narthex, and a northeast vestry. The south front facing West Street displays the south aisle with four bays demarcated by buttresses, each containing a three-light curvilinear window of identical design. The two-bay chancel aisle is unbuttressed and contains two two-light windows with curvilinear tracery of matching design, with two doorways beneath them. The west narthex is set beneath a hipped roof and features a Decorated-style doorway with foliage detail in the hollow of the head and polygonal responds. The nave, chancel, south aisle, and south chapel each have their own gabled roofs without parapets, though the narthex and vestry have plain parapets. There is no clerestory. The east windows display rich curvilinear tracery, with four lights in the chancel aisle and five in the chancel.

The interior contains well-proportioned aisle arcades with four filleted shafts to each pier, moulded capitals and moulded arches. The tall chancel arch is styled similarly, and the chancel is divided from the aisle by a two-bay arcade. The nave features a good open roof of eight closely-spaced arch-braced trusses with two tiers of wind braces, matched by similar roofs in the aisles and south chapel. The chancel has a boarded tunnel vault. The interior has subsequently been subdivided into different areas using altered floor levels and low screens.

The building was converted to a public house and has lost its ecclesiastical fittings. It suffered bomb damage during the Second World War. Its architectural quality, particularly externally, remains intact despite this conversion.