St. Peter and All Souls

Introduction

Saint Peter and All Souls in Peterborough, in the Diocese of East Anglia, was designed by architect Leonard Stokes, built between 1895 and 1904, and opened for worship in 1896.

History

The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Riddell of Northampton on 26 November 1895. The church was opened on 15 October 1896. About 7.6 metres at the eastern end of the nave and aisles was left unfinished due to insufficient funds, and this part was finished in 1904. In 1971 the original curved altar canopy and reredos were removed and replaced with copies.

In 1996, the building's centenary, funds were raised for a parish hall linking the rear of the presbytery and the north-east end of the church, designed by Thomas Wilson of Oakham. In the twenty-first century it was discovered that the nave walls were moving outwards, and structural scaffolding was put in place to support them.

Architecture and furnishings

The church is built of Stamford limestone with tiled roofs. The church is cruciform in plan, with porches on the south and north elevations, a nave with aisles, shallow transepts forming chapels, and a sanctuary at the east end. The gabled roof is continuous over the nave and sanctuary and extends over the aisles above a plain parapet, with a pointed bell cote at the east end. The west gable-end has bands of ashlar stonework and contains a large seven-light pointed window with curvilinear tracery.

The nave has an open timber roof, plain plastered walls, a timber boarded floor and a timber gallery across the western bay. The south-east Lady Chapel has a marble altarpiece by Leonard Stokes, with a fourteenth-century icon of the Virgin by Ugolino. The north-east chapel has a carved timber reredos with a relief of the Last Supper and Crucifixion by Ferdinand Stufflesser. The nave walls have large timber Stations of the Cross by Martin Feuerstein.

A small, late-twentieth-century timber octagonal font stands at the west end of the nave. The south elevation has a porch to the west end, five two-light pointed arch windows, and a south transept similar to the north transept but without a stair turret. The nave arcades of six bays have chamfered pointed arches on tall stone piers, and the arch vaults extend across the aisles to frame the windows in each bay. A tall, moulded, pointed arch opens into the sanctuary, which is raised three steps above the nave and has a blind north-west wall with a central recess, lit from either side by two-light arched windows.

The church is attached to the presbytery at the north-east, forming an L-shape, and a parish room is attached to the presbytery at the south-east corner of the L. The sanctuary has a curved altar-canopy and reredos, copies of the originals removed in 1971, incorporating carvings of 1913 of the Crucifixion, St Peter and Judas Maccabeus. The parish is looking to start a children's choir.

Parish life

A youth group for those aged 18-35 is part of the parish. The parish runs an RCIA journey for adults who want to explore the Catholic faith, become Catholic, or complete their Sacraments of Initiation.