St Peter's Church is in Eastgate Street in the centre of the city of

Chester Chester is a cathedral city and the county town of Cheshire, England. It is located on the River Dee, close to the English–Welsh border. With a population of 79,645 in 2011,"2011 Census results: People and Population Profile: Chester Loca ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England, immediately to the north of Chester Cross. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It is an active

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Chester and the deanery of Chester. The ancient walls mark the boundaries of the parish.

History

The church stands on the site of part of the Roman Praetorium, and some of its fabric dates from that time. A church is said to have been built on this site by Ethelfleda in 907. The present church dates from the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries, with modifications in the following three centuries. Formerly, the tower had a spire, which was removed and rebuilt in the 16th century, taken down in the 17th century, then rebuilt and finally removed "having been much injured by lightning" in around 1780. In 1849–50, the church was repaired by James Harrison, and in 1886 it was restored by John Douglas, which included the addition of a pyramidal spire.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is built of red sandstone and is approximately square in plan. Its floor is at the level of the adjacent Watergate Row and the church is entered by a flight of seven stone steps on the south face. At the west end there is an embraced tower that rises one stage above the roof, with a clock and a bell opening of two lights. The top is crenellated, with crocketed

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was mainly ...

s and a pyramidal

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

spire.

Interior

Inside the church is a continuous nave and chancel with four aisles. The west end is attached to and extends behind the backs of the adjacent buildings. Over the outer aisles and at the west end are galleries. The

baptistry In Christian architecture the baptistery or baptistry (Old French ''baptisterie''; Latin ''baptisterium''; Greek , 'bathing-place, baptistery', from , baptízein, 'to baptize') is the separate centrally planned structure surrounding the baptismal ...

lies below the tower. On the northeast pier is a niche that formerly contained a statue of the Virgin and Child, and surrounding it is the best-preserved medieval wall painting in Cheshire. On the south wall under the gallery are three

corbel In architecture, a corbel is a structural piece of stone, wood or metal jutting from a wall to carry a superincumbent weight, a type of bracket. A corbel is a solid piece of material in the wall, whereas a console is a piece applied to the s ...

s with medieval carvings of an angel, a woman and an old man. The marble

font In metal typesetting, a font is a particular size, weight and style of a typeface. Each font is a matched set of type, with a piece (a "sort") for each glyph. A typeface consists of a range of such fonts that shared an overall design. In mod ...

is dated 1662. In the south aisle attached to a pier is a 15th-century brass thought to depict a lawyer, and elsewhere in the church are memorials from the 17th century and two memorial boards by the Randle Holme family. The stained glass in the east window dates from 1863 and is by Heaton, Butler and Bayne. Glass in a window on the southeast of the church is by Clayton and Bell, and there is a west window by Trena Cox. The organ has two manuals and was built by Whiteley. There is a ring of six bells. Five of these which are dated 1709 are by Rudhall of Gloucester and the other, dated 1921, is by John Taylor and Company. The parish registers date from 1559 and the churchwardens' accounts from 1626, although the volume dating from 1686 to 1803 has been lost.

References

External links