Parish and Collegiate Church of St Peter

This church comprises two parallel chambers containing the nave and chancel in the south range and an aisle with organ chamber in the north range. It has a south porch, northeast tower and spire. Part of the north side is built of red sandstone, probably original fabric. Elsewhere the building is mainly constructed of large blocks of coursed grey stone, including early 18th-century and early 19th-century work. Much remodelling and rebuilding took place during the 1859 restoration, using either coursed or snecked stone with renewed slate roofs. The restoration introduced contemporary red sandstone dressings including a moulded plinth, sill band, quoins and raised stone copings with kneelers bearing gablets. Many of the windows also date from 1859.

Exterior

The south porch is built of snecked stone under a steep gabled roof with diagonal buttresses featuring offsets. Its entrance has an ogee arch with two orders of mouldings including attached filleted shafts with ringed capitals, a hoodmould with flower bosses, and double boarded doors with iron strapwork. Inside the porch, the entrance to the nave has a pointed arch with filleted moulding and double doors with an overlight, probably 20th century.

The south side of the nave has five 19th-century pointed-arched three-light windows with cinquefoiled heads to the lights—one to the left of the porch and four to the right. The hoodmoulds terminate in end stops carved with heads, plumes and foliage. The west end is two-span, built of coursed grey masonry from the early 18th century, though the gables have been rebuilt in snecked stone. Each gable end has a window with hoodmoulds bearing foliate end stops. The right-hand window is three-light with a sexfoil under the arch, possibly 14th century but reset. The left-hand gable end has a four-light 19th-century window and a roundel at the gable apex. A large sandstone tablet is fixed to the wall immediately left of centre, bearing a figure in relief, now eroded.

At the east end, the chancel window by Penson is four-light with reticulated tracery under the arch; the gable has been rebuilt in snecked stone. To the right, the original chancel was demolished, leaving the east crossing as the new external wall. A short stub wall running eastward may have been retained as a buttress. The east crossing arch has been rebuilt in red sandstone, probably in 1859, in Early English style. It features attached filleted shafts with foliated capitals and a hoodmould with head stops. The arch is blocked with snecked stone and contains a two-light window. A further stub wall runs north from the northeast angle, its purpose unknown.

The north side of the church is abutted at right angles by the Old Cloisters. To the left, the wall is constructed of red sandstone blocks in the lower half, with a pointed doorway at the far left, probably original, containing double boarded doors. A continuous hoodmould forms the sill to an early two-light window to the right, positioned in the angle with the Old Cloisters. This window is of yellow sandstone with tall lancets having trefoiled heads in plate tracery under a square hoodmould; the lancets are blocked with stone. The upper part of the wall is of coursed grey stone and contains, right of centre, a large yellow sandstone four-light Perpendicular window with a four-centred arched head. At the far right, beyond the Old Cloisters, is a two-light 19th-century window.

The tower and spire were rebuilt above the first stage in coursed pink sandstone as part of the 1859 restoration. The earlier lower stage has a small pointed lancet to the east and an arched bronze plate to the south, probably a sundial. The upper stage is stepped in, with a large recessed panel with corbel table to each face, pierced by a three-light Geometrical louvre under a hoodmould. An open ironwork clock is attached to the front of each louvre. The broached spire has lucarnes to each face and is surmounted by a weather vane.

Interior

The twin chambers are separated by a Decorated five-bay arcade of red sandstone featuring octagonal shafts with notches to the diagonal faces and scroll-moulded capitals supporting pointed arches with two orders of chamfered mouldings. A hoodmould with head bosses to the haunches runs above. At the east end of the north aisle is the former west crossing arch in Early English style, with attached filleted shafts with foliated capitals supporting a pointed arch of three strong orders of mouldings under a hoodmould. It contains a boarded screen decorated with stained glass panels and a segmental arched door leading into a chamber, not visible. To the right of the crossing arch on the south wall is a piscina with a trefoiled head.

The church has exceptionally fine late medieval wood-panelled roofs to both chambers, featuring moulded cambered tie-beams on arched and corbelled wall posts and heavily moulded ribs with painted bosses. The five-bay north aisle roof, formerly the nave, is highly ornate with tie-beams decorated with a trefoil frieze and panels carved with traceried circles and badges. The current nave ceiling is four-bay, while the chancel has four narrower bays painted in 1965-6.

The southwest angle is canted and contains a blocked doorway with a Tudor-arched head, moulded splayed surround, and decorative motifs, possibly heads, to the spandrels. At ceiling height is a moulded sandstone band or cornice. In the opposite corner of the nave is part of a stoup with a cinquefoiled head, the rest blocked by the west wall, suggesting the church was originally slightly longer.

Chancel

The chancel to the southeast was formed in 1859 and has a flagged stone floor reached by one step. The wooden choir stalls have pierced decoration and are probably late 19th to early 20th century. A moulded wooden altar rail sits on wooden posts with decorative braces. The altar table is said to be dated 1621 and features turned baluster legs and a guilloche frieze. A pale wood reredos, probably 20th century, stands behind. To the right of the altar are fine sedilia with four-sided colonettes having foliate capitals supporting open ogee arches under pedimented stone canopies. An octagonal wooden pulpit with blind traceried arches stands to the right front. Both chambers have a central aisle with plain wooden seating.

Furnishings

Towards the west end of the nave stands an octagonal stone font with ornate blind tracery and an octagonal stem with blind lancets, set on a large platform on a black and white mosaic floor. This is a memorial to Robert Humphrys Jones, who died in 1858. The east end of the aisle contains a large painted pipe organ behind a wooden screen with pierced trefoiled arches and brattishing.

Monuments

The church contains an exceptionally fine collection of monuments. On the north wall of the aisle, second from the left end, is an inscribed Elizabethan brass bearing figures of a man and woman flanked by weepers, commemorating Edward Goodman, who died in 1560 and was the father of Gabriel Goodman, and his wife. It is set within a cast iron border with a decorative round arch. To the left is a large stone monument with a moulded segmental-arched recess to another member of the Goodman family who died in 1621. To the right is a large recessed arch containing a painting, a memorial to Donovan Griffith who died in World War I. At the centre of this wall is a monument with pinnacles containing a segmental-headed marble panel to Harriet Myddelton of Chirk Castle, who died in 1848. To its right is a second brass to Edward Goodman who died in 1560. To the right of this is a large cartouche with heraldry to John Wynne, who died in 1655, and his wife Martha, who died in 1694, of Nantclwyd House.

Three monuments are on the north wall of the chancel. To the right is a painted bust of a man in an arched recess commemorating Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster, who died in 1601. At the centre is a large ornate marble monument in two halves divided by a twisted colonette, the outer Corinthian colonettes supporting an entablature with urn, foliage bands and coats of arms, attributed to Robert Wynne. The left panel commemorates Gabriel Goodman, who died in 1673, a descendant of Gabriel Goodman, Dean of Westminster. The right panel is to Roger Mostyn of Brymbo, who died in 1712 and married into the Goodman family. To the left is a tapering tablet surmounted by an urn containing a roundel with a kneeling weeper, by J H Foley, dedicated to Joseph Ablett of Llanbedr Hall, who died in 1848.

Good monuments on the east wall are mainly 18th century, that to the left containing an urn in front of an obelisk by Joseph Turner, dedicated to Mary Hughes who died in 1798. Behind the pulpit is a cast iron panel bearing a coat of arms flanked by the initials I P, dated 1636 with a Latin inscription. Above the pulpit is a classical-style monument with volutes, cherub heads and heraldry to John Wynne, who died in 1725, attributed to his brother Robert Wynne.

Stained Glass

All the stained glass is 19th century. The east window by Wailes, 1855, shows the life of Christ. To the west of the north aisle are two figures, probably including Christ, by James Powell & Sons, 1855, said to have been designed by Bouvier. The right-hand window behind the organ has two roundels towards the centre, one showing a baptism. The west end of the nave depicts the Crucifixion, dedicated to John Spier Hughes who died in 1868.