Roman Catholic Church of St Peter and All Souls, Peterborough, Peterborough, City of Peterborough

Summary

A Roman Catholic Church designed by the architect Leonard Stokes, built between 1895 and 1904 and opened for worship in 1896.

Description

Building: Roman Catholic church.

Date: 1895-1896.

Architect: Leonard Stokes.

Materials: Stamford limestone with tiled roofs.

Plan: The building is oriented from south-east to north-west but this report has been prepared using liturgical orientation where the sanctuary is described as being the east end.

The church is cruciform in plan, with porches on the south and north elevations; both placed at the west ends. There is a nave with aisles each side, and shallow transepts forming chapels. The sanctuary is at the east end, close to the single-storey sacristy which is accessed from the north aisle. This leads to the presbytery (separately listed Grade II, 1161350), which is attached to the church at the north-east and forms an L-shape. Attached to the presbytery at the south-east corner of the “L” is the parish room, accessed by its own external door on Fitzwilliam Street.

Exterior: The gabled roof is continuous over the nave and sanctuary and extends over the aisles above a plain parapet. To the east end, above the sanctuary, is a pointed bell cote.

The north elevation has seven bays from right to left. The first bay is expressed by the recessed porch which has a curved archway with a hood-mould, and a St Cuthbert’s cross incised either side. There are timber double doors with decorative iron strap-hinges with ivy leaf motifs.

The next four bays each have a two-light pointed arch window. To the left (east) of these is the north transept with its own gable-end topped with a cross-finial, a three-light pointed arched window and a small stair turret. Left of this is the two-light sanctuary window, and the single-storey sacristy with a plain parapet and mullioned windows with leaded lights.

The west gable-end has bands of ashlar stonework and contains a large seven-light pointed window with curvilinear tracery.

The south elevation has a porch to the west end, and five two-light pointed arch windows. Towards the west end is the south transept, similar to the north transept but without a stair turret. At the east end is the sanctuary with a similar two-light window to that in the north side, but also with a buttress to the left of the window. To the east it is attached to the parish room.

At the time of survey (2022) the nave walls were supported by scaffolding.

Interior: The nave has an open timber roof, plain plastered walls, a timber boarded floor and a timber gallery across the western bay. The windows throughout are clear glazed. The nave arcades of six bays have chamfered pointed arches on tall stone piers. The arch vaults extend across the aisles to frame the windows in each bay. The eastern bay of each arcade corresponds to the transepts, which each contain a small chapel.

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 sanctuary has a polished marble floor and a suite of altar, ambo, seating and tabernacle in stone by Antonio Gianatiempo. There is 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 south-east Lady Chapel has a marble altarpiece by Leonard Stokes, with a C14 icon of the Virgin by Ugolino. The chapel also has a stained glass three-light window by Hardman and an altar rail thought to be by Leonard Stokes.

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-C20 timber octagonal font stands at the west end of the nave.

History

England’s many medieval churches had been built for a Roman Catholic mode of worship (the Latin rite). Elizabeth I’s 1559 Act of Uniformity rendered them all part of the Church of England and outlawed the Catholic Mass. The following two centuries imposed upon a diminishing minority of Catholic worshippers in England severe civil inequalities, public suspicion and periods of outright persecution. Aside from a small number of private chapels and foreign embassies, there were very few buildings dedicated to Catholic worship.

The Second Catholic Relief Act of 1791 permitted the first new generation of Catholic places of worship to be built in England and Wales since the Reformation. They were forbidden to feature bells or steeples and were typically small, classically or domestically detailed, and were often hidden or set back from public view. The 1829 Act of Emancipation removed most remaining inequalities from Catholic worship and was accompanied by a growing architectural confidence. By the 1840s A W N Pugin’s vision of the Gothic revival as a recovery of England’s Catholic medieval inheritance fuelled stylistic debate and inspired new design for both Catholics and wider society. In 1850 Pope Pius X ‘restored’ the role of bishops, cathedrals and dioceses in England, inviting even grander architectural projects.

There was a significant expansion in the numbers of Catholics in England between 1850 (around 700,000), 1911 (around 1.7m) and 1941 (2.7m). This increase was accompanied by the development of a new Catholic parish system in 1908, by the construction of convents, monasteries, schools and social institutions, and by landmark buildings such as Westminster Cathedral (consecrated 1910).

Though the First and Second World Wars had some short-term impacts on the rate of expansion, the boom in schools, new towns, suburbs and housing estates in the 1950s and 60s saw more Catholic churches built in England than at any time since the Reformation. During that period the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965) introduced profound reforms to the Catholic church, including architectural changes informed by the Liturgical movement. Key changes include saying the Mass in languages other than Latin, and the reordering of churches to reflect a greater ecumenism and communality of worship.

In Peterborough, after the Reformation a scattered remnant population of Catholics continued to meet in private houses, where Mass was said by itinerant priests. One priest active in the area was Henry Heath, who had converted to Catholicism and was ordained at Douay but after returning to England was executed at Tyburn in 1643. The last private house to be used as a Mass centre in Peterborough was a cottage in Cumbergate, belonging to the Dean and Chapter of the Cathedral. On being turned out of this, local Catholics used a loft in Cumbergate as a chapel. The first resident Catholic priest in the C19 was the Revd Thomas Seed, who established the Holy Family mission in January 1848. In 1854 he acquired a site in Queen Street. There were insufficient funds to build a church as had been planned, and instead the school doubled up as a chapel, seating 170 and opening on 5 October 1856.

Fr Seed was followed in 1874 by the Revd Canon Moser, who actively raised funds for a new church, and in 1883 purchased a plot of land off Park Road from the Peterborough Land Company. The Queen Street site was sold and the proceeds put towards the building of a new church, to the designs of Leonard Stokes. The foundation stone was laid by Bishop Riddell of Northampton on 26 November 1895 and the church was opened on 15 October 1896. A presbytery was also built to Stokes’s designs. Mr Hammond of Peterborough was the builder. There were insufficient funds to complete the church, so about 7.6 metres at the eastern end of the nave and aisles was left unfinished. This part of the building was eventually finished in 1904.

In 1996 (the building’s centenary) funds were raised for the construction of a parish hall linking the rear of the presbytery and the north-east end of the church. The architects were Thomas Wilson of Oakham.

Various liturgical reorderings have been carried out, including in 1971 the removal of the original curved altar canopy and reredos and replacement with copies, and more recently in 2006 when the sanctuary was reordered to designs by Antonio Gianatiempo of Peterborough.

In the C21 it was discovered that the nave walls were moving outwards, and structural scaffolding was put in place to support them until funds can be found for permanent repairs. It is believed that structural failure began only 20 years after completion of the building.

Leonard Stokes (1858-1925) was articled to S J Nicholl, whose practice specialised in the design of Roman Catholic churches. He later worked as a clerk in the office of G E Street, and as an assistant to G F Bodley, among others. Over his long and productive career many of his commissions were for Roman Catholic churches and religious institutions, such as convents and Nazareth houses, as well as educational and public buildings. Amongst his most notable buildings are the Church of St Clare, Sefton Park, Liverpool, (Grade I 1205333), All Saints’ Pastoral Centre, London Colney (originally All Saints’ Anglican Convent, Grade II*, 1295615) and the Roman Catholic Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception in Georgetown, Guyana. His work varied stylistically according to context, producing gothic, Georgian or Jacobean buildings, for example, as the site or client demanded. Stokes’s office provided work for a number of notable architects including Louis de Soissons and Albert Richardson. He served as president of the Architectural Association and in 1910-1912 he was president of the Royal Institute of British Architects (RIBA). He was awarded the RIBA Gold Medal in 1919.

Reasons for Listing

Historic Interest:

* as an illustration of the continuation and revival of Roman Catholic worship in Peterborough in the C19;

Architectural Interest:

* as the work of Leonard Stokes, a highly significant architect of the late-C19 and early-C20, also responsible for the Church of St Clare, Sefton Park, Liverpool (Grade I, NHLE 1205333);

Group Value:

* forms part of a group with the Presbytery next door, also designed by Leonard Stokes (Grade II, NHLE 1161350).

External Links

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