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Description: Church of St Peter

Address: St Peters Church St Peters Avenue Sowerby Sowerby Bridge Calderdale HX6 1DF

Grade: I

Group detail: Town Gate (east end), Sowerby

Full description:
Church. 1763-66 John Wilson (Linstrum p.80), vestry and interior restoration c1880. Coursed squared millstone grit, roofs not visible. West tower; nave with gallery, north organ chamber and vestry; narrower apsidal sanctuary. Classical style. Tower: 3 stages. South side, 1st stage: corniced plinth with blind balustrade below windows; angle pilasters; 6-panel door to right; round-arched window in keyed architrave with imposts under square window in plain stone surround, both windows with glazing bars. 2nd stage: plinth as below, band, cornice; central raised panel with recessed architrave containing 1908 clock. 3rd stage: raised panel rises from below and has belfry opening of 2 pointed lights, cill band and imposts. Cornice. 4 pinnacles. West side: round-arched doorway with imposts, key blocks and inner plain stone door surround. Above is Venetian window with glazing bars and keystone. 2nd stage has bands, cornice and raised panel with clock. Belfry opening. Pinnacles. Single-storey addition to north in same style. North side: plainer but with bands, cornices, raised panel, belfry opening and pinnacles. Nave: 7 bays, central 3 bays breaking forward slightly as Tuscan distyle in antis. Corniced plinth has panels of blind balustrade under windows. Doors in Gibbs surrounds to outer bays: left door double, of 8 panels with overlight; right doorway infilled and with smaller 6-panel door. Ground-floor windows round-arched with imposts, archivolts, keystones; gallery windows rectangular in plain stone surrounds, 4 with glazing bars. Entablature with moulded cornice. Balustrade as plinth. North side: plainer. Bays divided by stepped pilaster buttresses. Blocked doorways in outer bays have tie-stones and pentapartite keystones. Windows as south front, without architraves. East side: windows as south front. Apse, east end: channelled rusticated basement with chamfered cornice; corniced plinth; giant Tuscan pilasters supporting entablature with cornice; Venetian window with Tuscan columns on blind balustrade supporting classical entablature with dentil cornice, large voussoirs over central light, hoodmould. Interior; internal porch: finely-panelled; C18 double door with overlight. Nave: giant composite columns on panelled bases supporting entablature with key motif to soffit, several moulded orders, modillion cornice. Horseshoe gallery with raised-and-fielded-panel and corniced front. Clock in architrave at west end and polychromatic marble colonnades flanking sanctuary. Sanctuary: lower portion of wall, c1880: panelling with beautifully-carved, pilastered, shell niche for credence and dentil cornice; polychromatic marble colonnades with male heads, floral entablature and modillion cornice. Venetian east window has Composite column jambs, entablature with dentil cornice, and is flanked by 4 corniced, eared, architraves framing the 10 Commandments and relief figures of Moses and Jesus. Above window is well-executed Royal Arms, dated 1766, flanked by 4 cartouches with coats of arms by Guiseppe Cortese (Linstrum, p.187), painted angels and titles of sculptures below. Frieze. Cornice continued from nave. Floors: encaustic tiles to nave; tessellated to sanctuary. C18 panelled pews to nave; numbered box pews to gallery; finely-carved C19 choir stalls. Polished stone altar rail. Elaborate C19 polychromatic marble pulpit with iron balustrade to stair. Panelled C18 tower door with stained glass panels and fanlight. Octagonal medieval font, and benefaction boards, on landing of gallery stairs. Fine series of monuments including: that to the locally-born Archbishop Tillotson, 1630-94 a statue by Joseph Wilson (royal statuary), c1796, in aedicule with inscription on bowed base; Stansfield family memorial, c1799 inscribed panel in pedimented shouldered architrave surmounted by urn; Leas family memorial, 1800-panel with relief foliage and frieze surmounted by urn on stand with drapery; Henry Longfield memorial, 1833 - panel on consoles with bracketed entablature under relief sculpture of women weeping beside broken column overhung by tree. Also: C17 portrait of Archbishop Tillotson; memorial tablet to Crimean War dead; series of fine coats of arms in gallery and clerestory; Jacobean oak table (possibly a former altar) near door; 8 bells of 1781. This fine classical church replaced an earlier one on the site. Linstrum notes that this design is based on the published plate of the Church of the Holy Trinity, Leeds, 1723-27 by William Etty (Linstrum, p.80). D Linstrum, West Yorkshire Architects and Architecture (1978). St Peter's Church, Sowerby - booklet held by Mr Gibson (vicar). Typescript belonging to Mr Gibson (vicar) entitled "Taken from the History of the Family of Stansfield by John Stansfield (printed 1885)".