Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter, now a chapel to the Young Offender Institution, was originally an Anglican parish church. It was consecrated in August 1872 and designed by Captain Du Cane of the Royal Engineers, costing approximately £8,000 to build. The church is constructed of Portland ashlar with slate roofs.

The building follows a cruciform plan, incorporating a western narthex, a bell cote, and transepts and a chancel in a vibrant Lombardic Romanesque style. The west front features a tall gabled bell cote with kneelers above an octagonal wheel window set within a pointed arch. A lean-to narthex with raised copings and seven arched windows is positioned behind a screen of doubled colonnettes. A raking buttress and plank doors in a moulded arch are on the south side. The exterior features a lofty plinth, flat pilasters, a continuous dwarf arcade, Lombard bands at the eaves, a moulded cornice, and a cast iron cavetto-mould gutter. The nave has a three-light window pattern, while the transepts have seven single-light windows; the north transept also includes a central door beneath a small arched window. The apse has a blank panel adjacent to the transept, followed by nine lights behind a screen of paired colonnettes. A lean-to vestry in the northeast corner includes a circular stack on a square base, and a door to the north.

Inside, the three-bay nave features tied arch-braced scissor trusses and a king post supported by stone corbels. The walls are unplastered. Window embrasures are deep and have a roll mould surround stopped to rosettes and a steeply sloping cill; most windows contain plain glass, except for the centre south window, which is stained glass installed in memory of Bandmaster J. Tyson and members of the Dorset Regiment who died in action, following its damage during bombing in 1941. The west wheel window depicts a series of angels and a central monogram IHS. The transepts have a varied version of the nave trusses. The chancel is accessed by a two-step approach to the sanctuary and incorporates a four-bay reredos with depictions of the Evangelists in mosaic, along with windows featuring paired colonnettes and blank panels listing regiments that served at The Verne between 1873 and 1937. A boarded celure and simple hammer-beam trusses are also present. A mosaic area in black and white is found beneath a wooden altar table. Most of the stained glass is from the 20th century. Arched recesses to the left and right of the chancel arch house the Decalogue, Lord's Prayer, and Creed. A stone octagonal pulpit and an unusual hexagonal base for a stone lectern are also present, along with a pipe organ in the south transept. The church has plain pine pews. The narthex exhibits a black and white mosaic and a plank ceiling. Reputedly, much of the construction work was carried out by convicts from the prison, and the mosaic work is attributed to Constance Kent, who was serving a life sentence at Parkhurst prison and later died at the age of 100.