Church Of St Peter

The Church of St Peter is a Gothic Revival style church built between 1885 and 1886. It was designed by Ewan Christian or, possibly, James Murchie of Carlisle, with detailed correspondence regarding the building found in the Buccleuch archives suggesting Murchie may have acted as executive architect. The church is constructed of red sandstone with a graduated green slate roof. It features a four-bay nave with a south porch and lean-to chapels, a two-bay chancel, and north and south transepts containing a vestry and organ chamber, respectively. The exterior displays plate tracery, steep gables with ashlar copings and crosses, and rock-faced plinth detailing. The gabled porch has a moulded, pointed arch with an impost string course and hoodmould. Bays 2 and 3 of the nave each feature three lancet windows with trefoils and a quatrefoil beneath a pointed hoodmould, and a cavetto-moulded eaves band. The chapel to bay 4 has three separate lancet windows. The west end has angled buttresses, a pointed doorway, and a large three-light window with cinquefoil under a hoodmould, topped by a gable slit. A slate-hung and louvred belfry with a pyramidal roof rises as an octagonal spirelet above bay 4. The chancel is lower, and the transepts each incorporate a three-light window of stepped lancets with a hoodmould; bay 2 is blind. Buttresses flank the three-light east window, which has Geometrical tracery and a hoodmould. Inside, double-chamfered arches lead into the chapels, and the nave roof is supported by three bow-string trusses with scissor-braced common rafters. Twin columns on corbels support a keeled chancel arch with floral carving and a hoodmould. The chancel features a boarded, barrel-vault ceiling. The original interior fittings include pews, a communion rail, an octagonal wooden pulpit with tracery and a stone plinth, and a quatrefoil font resting on granite colonnettes. The foundation stone was laid on July 11, 1885, and the church was consecrated on the same date in 1886. The cost of £3,600 was met by the Duke of Buccleuch and others.