Heritage
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Notable for its unusual fusion of free Gothic style used in a highly original manner, St Peter’s occupies no small place in the last great age of church building
- — Sir Roy Strong [4]
St Peter's was built as mission church of Christ the Saviour Church, Ealing. The Rector of Christ the Saviour raised funds for four daughter churches; St John's Church, Ealing, St Stephen's Church, Ealing, St Saviour's Church, Ealing, and St Peter's. [5]
The land on for the church was donated by John Clark Record. [6] Replacing an iron church which had stood on the site for 10 years, St Peter's was built between 1892 and 1893 to accommodate the growing suburb of North Ealing. The original iron church had been dedicated to St Andrew and it was originally proposed to give the same name to the new church. However, when the Presbyterians started to build in Mount Park Road in 1889, the vestry felt that "this Church should set the example of giving way in face of a threatened dispute about the Saint's name' and with commendable tact abandoned the 'Scottish' saint in favour of St Peter." [7]
The new building was designed by John Dando Sedding, the architect of Holy Trinity, Sloane Street, but following Sedding's death it was built under the direction of his pupil and successor in practice, the noted designer and architect Henry Wilson. The foundation stone was laid in 1893 by Princess Helena, Queen Victoria's third daughter. The building was consecrated the same year by Frederick Temple, Bishop of London and later Archbishop of Canterbury. [4] Wilson created the brass panels on the inside of the main doors, worked with flowing patterns. This decoration was accompanied by the bronze figure of an angel by F. W. Pomeroy, a feature which is now lost. [8]
Sedding's plans for the church were complimented by The Builder magazine as "a piece of real originality in design, which is refreshing to come across after seeing so many repetitions of old forms, Classic and Gothic". [4] Pevsner notes the "admirable use of Gothic forms – especially the curvaceous forms of late Gothic – to produce a building of great originality". [2]
The church was added to extensively throughout the first quarter of the 20th century. In 1911, two doorways were created at the west end of each aisle, and in 1913 the Lady Chapel was built on the south side of the chancel. The north transept tower intended by Sedding was never built. [4]
A notable feature of the building, the west front, has two small turrets on either side of large the recessed west window, which is unusually large with fine composite tracery. The exterior of the building is also of note on account of the long steep nave roof with shallow chains of arches connecting small turrets. [2]
Inside, much of the intended ornamentation was never completed. However, the building's substantial four-bay nave with Gothic triforium, [9] allied with the clear glass of the windows and the lack of ornamentation, make the church unusually light and spacious. Singular features include the in 1913, and the inner west doors, with decorative Art Nouveau metalwork by Wilson. [4]
For several decades, until his death in 1926, the architect and architectural designer Leonard Shuffrey, was a member of the Church and contributed to its beautification. Shuffrey designed the font (executed by Messers Blackler of Torquay and dedicated in 1911) as well as the decoration of the alabaster high altar table. [4] In 1896 a visit was paid to the newly completed St Peter's by the members of the Architectural Association, who afterwards received tea at Thorncote, Shuffrey's new Queen Anne style house on Edgehill Road. [8] Shuffrey's son, Gilbert Shuffrey, was killed at the Battle of Gallipoli and is memorialised in St Peter's Lady Chapel and on the Ealing Town Memorial, the later designed by his father. [10] Shuffrey's brother, James Allen Shuffrey, was a notable watercolour artist. [10]
Despite a scheme of stained glass being designed for the whole church, only the six (including two in what is now an office) were ever completed. It was designed by Walter Tower of Kempe and Co. [4]
The Great War & the Lady Chapel
A Lady Chapel was built in 1913. Between 1921 and 1928, the chapel was decorated as a war memorial. The scheme was let by the xicar, Bertram Kite, and his wife, as a memorial to their son Ralph Bertram Kite, who died fighting in Northern France, and to the fallen of the wider community. In 1921 an oak reredos by Cecil Greenwood Hare and brass memorial plaque were installed. Altar rails were donated by the social campaigner Isabella Holmes and her husband Basil, in memory of their son Wilfred Holmes.
Seven years later the scheme was completed with the decoration of the ceiling and a new screen between the Chapel and main Church. The work also included the addition fine wall paintings of the Annunciation angels over the reredos in the Lady Chapel, executed by watercolour artist Henry Charles Brewer. [10] Brewer created the paintings on canvass at his studio in Acton. A practicing Catholic, it the paintings are his only known church decoration work. The face of Brewer's painted Angel Gabriel is thought to be based on that of his brother James Alphege Brewer, the notable creator of etchings. An etching by James Alphege Brewer donated in 2022 by a descendent of the Brewer family hangs in the Chapel. [10] The chapel was conserved and restored in 2022. [10]
In the south aisle is a painting by late Pre-Raphaelite Edward Arthur Fellowes Prynne of 'Christ before Pilate'. Prynne was the brother the architect George Fellowes Prynne and lived in the parish. The picture was given to the church by Prynne's widow following his death in 1921. [4] Executed in 1898 in the artist's studio in the garden of his house at 1 Woodville Road, the picture is presumed to be the painting of the same name which Fellowes Prynne exhibited at the Dussledorf Exhibition of Religious Art.
