St Peter's Church, Hammersmith | |
---|---|
The Parish Church of Saint Peter | |
Location | Black Lion Lane, Hammersmith, London, W6 9BE |
Country | England |
Denomination | Church of England |
Website | Official website |
History | |
Dedication | Peter the Apostle |
Consecrated | 15 October 1829 |
Administration | |
Province | Canterbury |
Diocese | London |
Archdeaconry | Middlesex |
Deanery | Hammersmith and Fulham |
Clergy | |
Vicar(s) | Rev'd Dr Charles Clapham |
Laity | |
Organist(s) | Travis Baker |
Churchwarden(s) | Simon Brooke/Fiona Hay |
Listed Building – Grade II* | |
Designated | 17 June 1954 |
Reference no. | 1079843 |
St Peter's, Hammersmith, is a Church of England parish church. It is a Grade II* listed church, and the oldest church in Hammersmith. [1]
When the church was built in the village of Hammersmith in 1829, all that surrounded it was meadows, market gardens and smallholdings. The area steadily increased in size and prosperity due to the close proximity to the River Thames which was an important trading area.
The London Gazette of 8 November 1836 defined the boundaries of the St Peter's District thus:
It is bounded on the west by the Parish of Chiswick; on the south by the River Thames, the Creek and the High Bridge. Worple Way is towards the southern extremity of Waterloo Street; on the east northwardly Waterloo Street, including the west side of that street; then westward, by King's Street, that is the Turnpike Road leading from London to Brentford, as far as Webb's Lane, as far as Gould Hawke Road; and on the north by Gould Hawke Road until the said ancient road terminates in Chiswick parish at Stamford Brook.
The site of the church was donated by George Scott, born in 1780 to a wealthy family in Hammersmith. In 1807 he married Hannah Lucy Stoe, the daughter of another wealthy local family who brought as her marriage settlement the sum of £5,000, a large portion of land south of Ravenscourt Park and the land around Black Lion Lane (now St Peter's Square). By the 1820s Scott was deeply involved in the religious, social and business life of Hammersmith. He was a well-known and respected magistrate who provided generously to the causes of his poorer neighbours. [2]
Although George Scott donated the site, substantial financial contributions were provided by Doctor Horsley who was the Bishop of London (£250) and the Revd William Wood the Rector and Vicar of Fulham, (£500).
The church is what is known as a Commissioners' church, as it received a grant from the Church Building Commission towards its cost. The full cost was £12,099 (equivalent to £1,340,000 in 2023), [3] towards which the Commission paid £9,099. [4] It is a Grade II* listed building. [1] The first stone was laid on 16 May 1827, and the Church was consecrated on 15 October 1829. [5]
The architect was Edward Lapidge, born in Hampton Wick in 1793. His father, Samuel Lapidge, was a landscape gardener working at Hampton Court as an assistant to Lancelot (Capability) Brown.
In 1823, Edward Lapidge was finalist in a competition to design a set of new buildings for King's College, Cambridge. In 1835 he was a finalist again in a competition to design the Fitzwilliam Museum. His completed works include Hampton Wick Church (1829), the rebuilding of Hampton Church (1830), St Mary's Church, Putney (1836) and the enlargement of Fulham Church (1839). In 1852 he designed Reigate Police Station. He exhibited at the Royal Academy between 1808 and 1850. He died in 1860 and is buried at Hampton Wick Church. [2] [6]
The church is in the classical style, using the Ionic order, with tower and lobbies at the western end. The building is of brick with a limited amount of stone dressing. At the west end is a four-columned portico with stone columns and pediment, set into the brick wall of the church. The tower is of stone, on an octagonal brick pedestal. The interior space is not divided into aisles and nave, but has galleries on three sides, supported on Doric columns. It was intended to accommodate 1,691 worshippers, 691 of them in free seats. Describing the church in 1831, the Gentleman's magazine concluded " Taken as a whole, this Church presents a very fair specimen of modern Grecian architecture. The tower has considerable merit. The design is novel and pleasing, and the proportions are harmonious. The interior is however chaste and formal, displaying even a presbyterian nakedness, the dullness of which is increased by the purple furniture of the altar." [5]
The carved eagle lectern was presented by the then churchwarden Major C.E.A. Cotes in 1878 in the memory of his nephew, a former curate at the church.
In 1887 the interior of the church was redecorated under the advice of William Morris, who lived locally. In the same year the old, high-sided pews were replaced with more modern seating.
The stone font was moved from its original position at the back of the church and is now sited in the middle, beside the southern aisle and is frequently in use for baptisms. [2]
The most recent additions to the decorations of the church are the murals, which cover the east wall above the galleries, painted in 1932. They depict Saint Peter being called by Jesus Christ, and the apostle preaching in Jerusalem on the day of Pentecost. [2]
When built, St Peter's Church was had a single bell, cast at the Whitechapel Bell Foundry and inscribed 'Edward Mears fecit, London 1828'. In 1916, four more bells were cast by Mears and Stainbank to provide a ring of five. [7]
When the Great West Road was built in 1957 the Church lost a significant portion of its land, including that with graves. These were moved to St Paul's Church, in the centre of Hammersmith. There is one headstone remaining on the south side of the church and thirty on the north side. All of the graves inscriptions are now indecipherable, except for the one on the south side. [2]
St Peter's Church is linked to St Bartholomew's Cathedral Church, Messumba, Mozambique. [8]
Chiswick is a district in the London Borough of Hounslow, West London, England. It contains Hogarth's House, the former residence of the 18th-century English artist William Hogarth; Chiswick House, a neo-Palladian villa regarded as one of the finest in England; and Fuller's Brewery, London's largest and oldest brewery. In a meander of the River Thames used for competitive and recreational rowing, with several rowing clubs on the river bank, the finishing post for the Boat Race is just downstream of Chiswick Bridge.
Fulham is an area of the London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham in West London, England, 3.6 miles (5.8 km) southwest of Charing Cross. It lies in a loop on the north bank of the River Thames, bordering Hammersmith, Kensington and Chelsea, with which it shares the area known as West Brompton. Over the Thames Fulham faces Wandsworth, Putney, the London Wetland Centre in Barnes in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
The Whitechapel Bell Foundry was a business in the London Borough of Tower Hamlets. At the time of the closure of its Whitechapel premises, it was the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain.
Hampton Wick is a Thamesside area of the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames, England, contiguous with Teddington, Kingston upon Thames and Bushy Park.
St. Paul's Cathedral is an Anglican cathedral in the city of Dundee, Scotland. It is the cathedral and administrative centre of the Diocese of Brechin in the Scottish Episcopal Church.
St Peter's Church is in Chapel Street, Congleton, Cheshire, England. It is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the Diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Congleton. Its benefice is combined with those of St Stephen, Congleton, St John the Evangelist, Buglawton, and Holy Trinity, Mossley. Alec Clifton-Taylor includes it in his list of 'best' English parish churches. The Church Buildings Council included St Peter's in its group of 300 Major Parish Churches following research produced in 2016. [Pursell 2016]
St John the Evangelist's Church lies to the southeast of the village of Chelford, Cheshire, England. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II* listed building. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield and the deanery of Knutsford. Its benefice is combined with that of St Peter, Lower Withington.
Richard Phelps (c.1670–1738) was born in Avebury, Wiltshire, England. Phelps was a bellfounder, or a maker of bells, primarily for churches. He was master of the Whitechapel Bell Foundry in London from 1701 to 1738, and is best known for his large bell, Great Tom, in the steeple of St Paul's Cathedral in London, England. The foundry, in operation since at least 1570, was listed by the Guinness Book of Records as the oldest manufacturing company in Great Britain.
St Peter's Square, in Hammersmith, London, England, is a garden square laid out in the 1820s, just north of the River Thames between the Great West Road (A4) and King Street, within the St Peter's Square Conservation Area and London Borough of Hammersmith and Fulham.
St Mary's Parish Church, Hampton, is an Anglican church in Hampton in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames.
Edward Lapidge (1779–1860) was an English architect, who held the post of county surveyor of Surrey and designed Kingston Bridge.
St Peter's Church is in Manchester Road, Ashton-under-Lyne, Greater Manchester, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the deanery of Ashton-under-Lyne, the archdeaconry of Rochdale, and the diocese of Manchester.
St Paul's Cathedral, Bendigo, is an Anglican cathedral church in Bendigo, Victoria, Australia. It is the cathedral church of the Diocese of Bendigo and the seat of the Bishop of Bendigo, presently Matthew Brain.
St John's Hampton Wick is a Grade II listed Church of England church on Church Grove and St John's Road in Hampton Wick, in the London Borough of Richmond upon Thames. It was built to a design by Edward Lapidge in 1829–30.
St Mary's Church is a Grade I listed parish church in the Church of England in Mildenhall, Suffolk.
St Paul's is a Grade II* listed Anglican church on Queen Caroline Street, Hammersmith, London.
St Stephen's Church is a Church of England church on Castlebar Hill in Ealing. It was founded in 1867 as a mission and is now established as a separate parish. The first church building was a temporary iron church which was then replaced in 1876 by a substantial Victorian Gothic stone building which is now Grade II listed. Subsidence made that unsafe and it was deconsecrated in 1979. It has been converted to flats but still forms the landmark centrepiece of the St Stephen's Conservation Area. The congregation now holds services on the site of the church hall which has been redeveloped as the third church building and community centre.
Chiswick High Road is the principal shopping and dining street of Chiswick, a district in the west of London. It was part of the main Roman road running west out of London, and remained the main road until the 1950s when the A4 was built across Chiswick. By the 19th century the road through the village of Turnham Green had grand houses beside it. The road developed into a shopping centre when Chiswick became built up with new streets and housing to the north of Old Chiswick, late in the 19th century. There are several listed buildings including public houses, churches, and a former power station, built to supply electricity to the tram network.
The 1886 Church of Our Lady of Grace & St Edward, serving the Roman Catholic parish of Chiswick, stands on the south side of Chiswick High Road, on the corner with Duke's Avenue.