Church Of St Peter

Church of St Peter, Devizes

This simple Gothic church in Bath and Ham stone with Westbury tiled roofs was built in 1865-6 by the architects Slater & Carpenter, largely through the efforts of the Reverend B.C. Dowding, vicar of St James. The church was constructed to serve the Nursery and Piccadilly areas to the west of Devizes, districts that had begun developing after the construction of the Kennet and Avon Canal around 1810. The foundation stone was laid in June 1865, and the church was consecrated on 17 July 1866 at a cost of £2,234. A south aisle and organ chamber were added in 1884-5 by Weaver & Adye.

The church is a plain, low building without a tower, designed in 13th-century style. The west gable features a bellcote on moulded corbels with paired attached columns, crisp mouldings and crockets. Windows are uncusped, consisting of single lancets in the chancel or paired lancets with plate-traceried quatrefoils in the north wall. The small north porch has late 20th-century glazed outer doors. The dominant architectural feature is the five-sided apsidal chancel, simply treated with deep buttresses that continue along the deep gabled transept and south side where the low aisle was added.

The interior has an arch-braced collar beam roof in the nave. The chancel vault is boarded and painted. The nave arcade comprises four arches cut square with only small hollow chamfers at the angles and a continuous outer moulding well above. The piers are slim and circular with widely splayed block capitals and corbels supporting the roof trusses—elements that appear to have been left incomplete for lack of funds. The south aisle is low and broad, its arcade having been built in 1865 with bricked-up openings in anticipation of future enlargement.

The church contains important fittings and furnishings. The sanctuary fittings, altar and dorsal hanging were designed by the vicar, the Reverend G.F. George, in 1935; George had trained as an architect and also designed a good rood group in 1938, which stands on a wrought-iron rood screen of 1902. Victorian choir stalls with wrought-iron frames are also present. The chancel floor is laid with red and cream Minton tiles. The nave is floored in tile and stone and retains the original pine open benches with Puginian inverted-Y framed ends. A simple stone pulpit with columns and top rail stands in the north-east angle of the nave.

The major adornment is the stained glass, mostly by Powell & Sons of Whitefriars from around the 1880s. At least two windows—Christ with Children (1878-9) and Christ Walking on the Water with St Peter (1885)—were designed by Henry Holiday. One chancel window depicting the Good Shepherd was designed by J.W. Brown. Other windows were assembled from cartoons by various artists, as was customary with Powell & Sons. One lancet is obscured by the altar hanging. The fine west window of three tall lights in pale blue and gold on a white ground was made by Powell & Sons in 1934 from a sketch by James Hogan, Powell's principal and foremost designer at that date. Two further paired lights in the north aisle by Powell & Sons depict two angels (1901) and Christ Blessing Children (1908). The south aisle contains mostly late 20th-century glass, except for two windows—the Baptism and Timothy, Eunice and Lois—attributed to Hardman and brought from elsewhere after 1985.

The font, positioned in the south-west corner of the nave, has a circular bowl with a carved band at the base and emblems in sunk panels. The walls behind it are tiled with an attractive opus-sectile design showing Arts and Crafts influence, dating from around 1900, possibly also by Powell & Sons, who specialised in such work.

William Slater (1818/19-1872), the lead architect, took over the practice of R.C. Carpenter following the latter's early death in 1855. He was joined by Carpenter's son, Richard Herbert, as a partner in 1863.