Description

833/17/253

CANTERBURY STREET

24-JUN-74

HILLFIELDS

Church of St Peter

II

Former Anglican church, disused at the time of survey (2002) and sited amongst social housing, mostly in tower blocks, close to Coventry City Centre. A new church of St Peter has been built alongside. 1840-41 to the designs of Robert Ebbles in a pre-archaeological lancet style with some Perpendicular elements. Flemish bond red brick with brick dressings. Plan of shallow chancel, nave with west gallery with stairs in blocks flanking the west end tower; east end vestry.

EXTERIOR: The windows have flat-faced hoodmoulds with square terminals, some have been dressed off. Shallow sanctuary with a parapet and four-light east window in a rustic Perpendicular style. Eight-bay buttressed nave with a parapet and large lancet windows. Three-stage porch/tower with angle buttresses with set-offs and a parapet with crow-stepped battlements. Double-chamfered Tudor arched west doorway with a large three-light west window over and tall lancets to the belfry. Square-on-plan stair blocks to the gallery to left and right have set-back buttresses, plain parapets and smaller Tudor-arched doorways. The east end vestry is low with a blocked triple lancet window.

INTERIOR: The sanctuary is defined by a moulded stone arch, the mouldings dying into plain responds. The chancel is defined by very plain timber rails with a memorial date of 1944. Eight-bay roof of nine closely-spaced trusses of tie beam and queen post design. The roof is unexpectedly substantial, given the 1840-41 date. Short arched braces below the tie beam are decorated with pierced quatrefoils and supported on moulded stone corbels and there are cusped braces from the queen posts to the collars. The roof is plastered behind the rafters. Very deep west gallery, canted forward in the centre. The front of the gallery has been renewed but the supports, two rows of cast iron columns, with additional columns at the angles, are presumably original. Cantilevered stone stairs to the galleries have iron balustrades with plain verticals and ramped handrails. Arched doorways at the west end of the nave lead to the gallery stairs and a large chamfered arch in the centre leads into the porch. Font, painted white, with an octagonal bowl carved with blind trefoils, and an octagonal stem. Font cover dated 1966. Timber pulpit, damaged, has a 1914 memorial date but appears to be integral with the wooden screening forming a south-east vestry in the corner of the nave, screening dated 1929 and incorporating a projecting tester to the pulpit. Nave benches of rather unusual design with open backs and shouldered ends pierced by roundels. Some gallery benches, with very slender ends and panelled backs may be original, along with simple benches along the back wall of the nave. Brass eagle lectern. Two timber altars, both probably early C20. One, at the east end of the nave stands in front of a panelled First World War memorial incorporating lists of names.

Grade II for an unusually substantial brick town church of 1840-41, with tower. The interior has a good, but not outstanding, roof for the date and unremarkable fittings.

This List entry has been amended to add the source for War Memorials Online. This source was not used in the compilation of this List entry but is added here as a guide for further reading, 27 October 2017.

This entry was subject to a Minor Amendment on 22 August 2019.

External Links

• Historic England Listing
• Wikidata Q26341928

External links are from the relevant listing authority and, where applicable, Wikidata. Wikidata IDs may be related buildings as well as this specific building. If you want to add or update a link, you will need to do so by editing the Wikidata entry.

Recommended Books

• 
  Kent: West and the Weald: The Buildings of England (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Warwickshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides) (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Old House Care and Repair
• 
  Berkshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)
• 
  Department for Communities Listed Historic Buildings of Northern Ireland: Information Guide for the 2nd Survey of Historic Buildings
• 
  Wiltshire (Pevsner Architectural Guides: Buildings of England)