St Peter's Church, Eaton Square

St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square
Southwest front of St Peter's
Location Eaton Square,
Belgravia, London SW1
Country United Kingdom
Denomination Church of England
Churchmanship Anglo-Catholic
Website St Peter's Eaton Square
History
Status Parish church
Dedication Paul the Apostle
Events 1837 rebuilt after a fire
1987 gutted by fire again
1991 rebuilt again
Architecture
Functional status Active
Heritage designation Grade II* listed
Designated 24 February 1958
Architect(s) Henry Hakewill (1824 design)
Arthur Blomfield (1875 chancel and transepts)
Braithwaite Partnership (1991 rebuilding)
Style Neoclassical
Completed 1827, 1837, 1991
Administration
Diocese London
Province Canterbury
Clergy
Vicar(s) Ralph Williamson
Assistant Julie Khovacs

St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square is a Church of England parish church at the east end of Eaton Square, Belgravia, London. It is a neoclassical building designed by the architect Henry Hakewill with a hexastyle portico with Ionic columns and a clock tower. On 19 October 1991 The Times newspaper wrote "St Peter’s must now rank as one of the most beautiful churches in London". It is a Grade II* listed building.[1]

History

St Peter's in 1827

St Peter's was built between 1824 and 1827 during the first development of Eaton Square. The interior was, as was common at the time, a "preaching box", with galleries in three sides and the organ and choir at the west end. James Elmes called the effect "chaste and simple".[2]

This building burnt down, and in 1837 was rebuilt from Hakewill's drawings by one of his sons.[3] The original building was a Commissioners' church, receiving a grant from the Church Building Commission towards its cost. The full cost of the building was £22,427 (equivalent to £1,780,000 in 2016),[4] towards which the Commission paid £5,556.[2][5]

In 1875, the church was enlarged and reordered to designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield, who added a chancel at the east end and north and south transepts and "fiercely normanized" the interior.[6] Internally Blomfield's chancel and transepts are Romanesque Revival, but externally they conform with Hakewill's neoclassical style.

From its founding St Peter's, Eaton Square, Pimlico and until at least 1878 was usually recorded as St Peter's, Pimlico.[7][8] In 1953 the crypt containing some 400 burials was cleared and the remains reinterred at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey.

On 20 October 1987 an anti-Catholic arsonist set fire to the east end, in the mistaken belief that the building was a Roman Catholic chapel. Within hours the church was engulfed. By the next day the fire was out but only the Georgian shell of the building remained. It was roofless, with most of its furnishings destroyed.[9]

The church needed total rebuilding. The Braithwaite Partnership of architects was appointed to completely redesign the building with a new and simpler interior, and to incorporate within the site a vicarage, offices, flats for a curate, verger and music director, a meeting hall, nursery school rooms and a large playroom for the church's youth club.

Work on the new church began at Easter 1990 and was completed in 1991. It retained the grand Georgian portico but beyond that the interior is described by visitors as clean, bright and modern.[10] The choir and organ are at the west end, as in the 1827 plan, but the fittings are thoroughly modern. The church is accessible and has disabled-accessible toilets. Behind the altar is an apse that is decorated entirely with gold mosaic. Around the side of the apse, part of the 1873 sanctuary which survived the fire can be seen, and also a side chapel now used as the vestry office, complete with stained glass.

The organ inside St Peter's after the 1991 rebuilding

Notable weddings

See also

References

  1. ↑ Historic England. "Church of St Peter  (Grade II*) (1356980)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
  2. 1 2 Pevsner & Cherry 1973, p. 498.
  3. ↑ Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1975.
  4. ↑ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved November 6, 2017.
  5. ↑ Port 2006, p. 328.
  6. ↑ Pevsner & Cherry 1973, p. 499.
  7. ↑ "St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square, Pimlico". Genealogy & Family History. London Ancestor.
  8. ↑ "1878 Marriage Licence location St. Peter's Pimlico". Ancestry.com. (subscription required)
  9. ↑ Hatfield, Mary (25 February 1990). "The resurrection of St Peter's". The Sunday Times.
  10. ↑ "Review". Qype.
  11. ↑ UK Lord Lucan's son arrested at BBC.co.uk, accessed 25 February 2018
St Peter's seen from the southeast from Hobart Place

Sources

  • Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (revision) (1973) [1951]. London. The Buildings of England. 1 The Cities of London and Westminster (3rd ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 498–499. ISBN 0-14-071011-6.
  • Port, MH (2006). 600 New Churches: The Church Building Commission 1818–1856 (2nd ed.). Reading: Spire Books. p. 328. ISBN 978-1-904965-08-4.
  • St Peter's Eaton Square
  • "St Peter's Church, Eaton Square, rebuilding after fire". The Braithwaite Partnership.
  • St Peter's Eaton Square C of E Primary School

Coordinates: 51°29′52″N 0°08′57″W / 51.4978°N 0.1493°W / 51.4978; -0.1493

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