Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Hinton Road

This is a large parish church built in stages between 1851 and 1879, constructed of Purbeck stone with Bath stone dressings. The south aisle was designed by Edmund Pearce in 1851, while the remainder of the church was designed by the renowned Victorian architect George Edmund Street between 1855 and 1879.

The most dominant feature is the west tower and spire, completed in 1869 and 1879 respectively. The spire is an important local landmark, standing 202 feet high and built in the Midlands type with an octagonal form. The tower's west face features a doorway approached by steps, topped with a four-light Geometrical window. The third stage displays a steeply pointed blind arcade with encircled quatrefoils in the spandrels. The belfry stage contains paired two-light windows and an elaborate foliage-carved cornice with arcaded panelled parapet. The spire has three tiers of lucarnes (roof windows) and flying buttresses springing from gabled pinnacles with statues by the sculptor Redfern in niches.

The western transepts, built in 1874, are lit by four-light Geometrical windows. The nave, constructed between 1855 and 1859, has a clerestory of five pairs of two-light plate tracery windows between broad flat buttresses, with red sandstone bands to the walls and voussoirs, and foliage medallions in the spandrels.

The north aisle features narrow cinquefoiled lancet windows. Pearce's south aisle has two-light Geometrical windows with glass by the glass designer Wailes, dating from 1852 to 1859. A gabled south porch has a foliage-carved arch of three orders with an inner arcade to lancet windows. The south transept gable window is a four-light plate tracery design. A south-east sacristy was added in 1906 by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson. The north transept gable displays five stepped cinquefoiled lancets under a hoodmould. North-east vestries, built in Street's style by H E Hawker in 1914–15, feature two east gables. Large pairs of buttresses frame the corners of the chancel, which has a five-light Geometrical window.

The interior contains a nave arcade of five bays with double-chamfered arches on octagonal columns and black marble colonnettes to the clerestory. Wall surfaces were painted in 1873–77 by Clayton and Bell, with medallions in the spandrels. A large Rood in a trefoil frame is positioned above the chancel arch. The roof consists of arched braces on hammerbeams supported on black marble wall shafts, with kingposts positioned high up. The north aisle lancets are embraced by a continuous trefoil-headed arcade on marble colonnettes, and contain excellent early glass by Clayton and Bell. A War Shrine Crucifix by Comper dates to 1917. The western arch of the nave is of Wells strainer type with large openwork roundels in the spandrels. The tower arch sits on piers with unusual fluting of classical type, and contains glass by Clayton and Bell in the tower windows.

The south-west transept houses a font by Street dating to 1855, which is octagonal with grey marble inlay in trefoil panels. The south window glass is by Percy Bacon, from 1896. A pulpit designed by Street and carved by Earp was exhibited at the 1862 Great Exhibition. It is circular, constructed of pink marble and alabaster with marble-columned trefoil-headed arcading over a frieze of inlaid panels, standing on short marble columns with a tall angel supporting the desk. The lectern is a brass eagle made by Potter in 1872, with railings to the steps by Comper dating from 1915.

The chancel, constructed in 1863–64, contains a two-bay choir with elaborate dogtooth and foliage-carved arches on foliage capitals, with clustered shafts of pink marble and stone. Sculptured scenes by Earp appear in cusped vesica panels in the spandrels. The pointed boarded wagon roof features painted patterning by Booley and Garner, dated 1891. Choir stalls with poppyheads were made by Street in 1874. Ornate and excellent parclose screens of openwork iron on twisted brass columns were also by Street and made by Leaver of Maidenhead. The pavement dates to 1915 and is by Comper.

The sanctuary, also of two bays, is rib-vaulted with clustered marble wall shafts featuring shaft rings and foliage capitals. Painted decorations were executed by Sir Arthur Blomfield in 1899 and carried out by Powells. The first bay contains sedilia on both sides within the main arcade, backed by a double arcade of alternating columns of pink alabaster (twisted) and black marble. The second bay is aisleless and lined with Powell mosaics. The east window contains fine glass by Clayton and Bell, designed by Street in 1866.

The reredos by Redfern, designed by Street, displays a Majestas in a vesica flanked by angels under gabled canopies, flanked by purple and green twisted marble columns with flanking Powell mosaics of angels from 1899, echoing the design of earlier Burne-Jones work which had disintegrated.

The north transept aisle screen by Comper dates to 1915. The Minstrel Window by Clayton and Bell was made in 1874, with sculpture of Christ and St Peter by Earp over the doorway. The south transept aisle screen and altar cross and candlesticks to the chapel are by Sir Thomas Graham Jackson, from 1906. Murals by Heaton, Butler and Bayne date from 1908. Windows in the transept and over the altar are by Clayton and Bell from 1867, whilst the window to the south of the chapel (of particularly high quality) is by Morris, Marshall, Faulkner and Company, from 1864.

The church forms part of a group which also includes the Churchyard Cross, Lychgate, Chapel of the Resurrection, and two groups of gravestones.