St Peter's Church, Macclesfield Explained

St Peter's Church, Macclesfield
Pushpin Map:Cheshire
Pushpin Mapsize:250
Pushpin Label Position:left
Map Caption:Location in Cheshire
Location:Windmill Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire
Country:England
Coordinates:53.2534°N -2.1179°W
Osgraw:SJ 922 729
Website:St Peter, Macclesfield
Dedication:Saint Peter
Status:Parish church
Functional Status:Active
Heritage Designation:Grade II
Designated Date:28 October 1984
Architect:Charles and James Trubshaw
Architectural Type:Church
Style:Gothic Revival
Completed Date:1849
Materials:Stone, tile roofs
Parish:Macclesfield Team Parish
Deanery:Macclesfield
Archdeaconry:Macclesfield
Diocese:Chester
Province:York
Rector:vacant
Reader:Judith Gibson

St Peter's Church is in Windmill Street, Macclesfield, Cheshire, England. It is an active Anglican parish church in the diocese of Chester, the archdeaconry of Macclesfield, and the deanery of Macclesfield. It forms a team ministry with three other Macclesfield churches: St Michael, All Saints, and St Barnabas. The church is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade II listed building. It was a Commissioners' church, having received a grant towards its construction from the Church Building Commission.

History

St Peter's was built in 1849, and designed by Charles and James Trubshaw. It was planned to have a spire, but this was never built. A grant of £257 was given towards its construction by the Church Building Commission. The interior was re-ordered in 2005.

Architecture

Exterior

The church is constructed in rubble stone with tiled roofs. Its architectural style is Early English. The plan consists of a five-bay nave with a clerestory, north and south aisles, a chancel, a northeast vestry, and a southwest tower. The tower is in four stages with corner buttresses, and an embattled parapet with corner pinnacles. There are doors on the west and southwest sides, lancet windows in the second stage, circular clock faces in the third stage, and paired louvred bell openings in the top stage. Along the sides of the church the bays are divided by buttresses, each bay containing a lancet window. The clerestory contains gabled dormers. The east window in the chancel is a stepped triple lancet.

Interior

Inside the church is a west gallery. The nave is divided from the aisles by five-bay arcades carried on circular piers whose capitals are decorated with stiff-leaf carving. The bowl of the font has blind trefoil arcading, and is carried on clustered shafts. The wooden lectern is elaborately carved. The organ was built in 1891 by Young. There is a ring of eight bells, all of which were cast in 1947 by John Taylor & Co of Loughborough.

See also