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St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square
St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square
	South-west front of St Peter's
Location	Eaton Square,; Belgravia, London SW1
Country	United Kingdom
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Liberal Catholic
Website	St Peter's Eaton Square
History
Status	Parish church
Dedication	Peter the Apostle
Events	1837 rebuilt after a fire; 1987 gutted by fire again; 1991 rebuilt again
Architecture
Functional status	Active
Heritage designation	Grade II* listed
Designated	24 February 1958
Architect(s)	Henry Hakewill (1824 design); Arthur Blomfield (1875 chancel and transepts); Braithwaite Partnership (1991 rebuilding)
Style	Neoclassical
Completed	1827, 1837, 1991
Administration
Province	Canterbury
Diocese	London
Clergy
Vicar(s)	Jonathan Kester
Assistant	Julie Khovacs

St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square, is a Church of England parish church at the east end of Eaton Square, Belgravia, London. It is a neoclassical building designed by the architect Henry Hakewill with a hexastyle portico with Ionic columns and a clock tower. On 19 October 1991 The Times newspaper wrote "St Peter’s must now rank as one of the most beautiful churches in London". It is a Grade II* listed building.^[1]

History

St Peter's was built between 1824 and 1827 during the first development of Eaton Square. The interior was, as was common at the time, a "preaching box", with galleries in three sides and the organ and choir at the west end. James Elmes called the effect "chaste and simple".^[2]

This building burnt down, and in 1837 was rebuilt from Hakewill's drawings by one of his sons.^[3] The original building was a Commissioners' church, receiving a grant from the Church Building Commission towards its cost. The full cost of the building was £22,427 (equivalent to £2,450,000 in 2023),^[4] towards which the Commission paid £5,556.^[2]^[5]

In 1875, the church was enlarged and reordered to designs by Sir Arthur Blomfield, who added a chancel at the east end and north and south transepts and "fiercely normanized" the interior.^[6] Internally Blomfield's chancel and transepts are Romanesque Revival, but externally they conform with Hakewill's neoclassical style.

From its founding St Peter's, Eaton Square, was considered in Pimlico and until at least 1878 was usually recorded as St Peter's, Pimlico.^[7]^[8] All of the parish of Christ Church, Broadway and half of that of St Andrew's Church, Ashley Place were merged into St Peter's after they were both damaged beyond repair in the Blitz, with the other half of St Andrew's parish going to St Stephen's Church, Rochester Row.^[9]

In 1951 the crypt containing some 400 burials was cleared and the remains reinterred at Brookwood Cemetery in Surrey. Choristers for the choir were provided by London Choir School until 1958 when the choir school closed.

Arson and rebuilding

On 20 October 1987 an anti-Catholic arsonist set fire to the east end, in the mistaken belief that the building was a Roman Catholic chapel. Within hours the church was engulfed. By the next day the fire was out but only the Georgian shell of the building remained. It was roofless, with most of its furnishings destroyed.^[10]

The church needed total rebuilding. The Braithwaite Partnership of architects was appointed to completely redesign the building^[11] with a new and simpler interior, and to incorporate within the site a vicarage, offices, flats for a curate, verger and music director, a meeting hall, nursery school rooms and a large playroom for the church's youth club.

Work on the new church began at Easter 1990 and was completed in 1991. It retained the grand Georgian portico but beyond that the interior is described by visitors as clean, bright and modern.^[12] The choir and organ are at the west end, as in the 1827 plan, but the fittings are thoroughly modern. The church is accessible and has disabled-accessible toilets. Behind the altar is an apse that is decorated entirely with gold mosaic. Around the side of the apse, part of the 1873 sanctuary which survived the fire can be seen, and also a side chapel now used as the vestry office, complete with stained glass.

Present day

St Peter's stands in the liberal Anglo-Catholic tradition of the Church of England.^[13] It holds Book of Common Prayer as well as Common Worship services.^[14]

Notable weddings

Gertrude Vernon and Sir Andrew Agnew, 9th Baronet, 15 October 1889
Prince Victor Duleep Singh and Lady Anne Blanche Alice of Coventry, 4 April 1898
Edith Helen Chaplin and Charles Vane-Tempest-Stewart, Viscount Castlereagh, 28 November 1899
Dorothea Beighton and J. A. Middleton, MC, 4 January 1921^[15]^[16]^[17]
Margaret Campbell Geddes and Prince Ludwig of Hesse and by Rhine, 17 November 1937. The wedding had been planned for the day after but was moved forward after Prince Ludwig's family perished in the Sabena OO-AUB Ostend crash.
Stirling Moss and Canadian heiress Katie Molson, 7 October 1957.^[18] The wedding was attended by over 500 guests.
Lady Camilla Bingham and Michael Bloch, 12 September 1998^[19]

References

^ Historic England. "Church of St Peter (Grade II*) (1356980)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
^ ^a ^b Pevsner & Cherry 1973, p. 498.
^ Dictionary of National Biography. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 1975.^{[clarification needed]}
^ UK Retail Price Index inflation figures are based on data from Clark, Gregory (2017). "The Annual RPI and Average Earnings for Britain, 1209 to Present (New Series)". MeasuringWorth. Retrieved 7 May 2024.
^ Port 2006, p. 328.
^ Pevsner & Cherry 1973, p. 499.
^ "St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square, Pimlico". Genealogy & Family History. London Ancestor.
^ "1878 Marriage Licence location St. Peter's Pimlico". Ancestry.com.(subscription required)
^ 'Big Re-organisation of Churches Planned - Westminster to Lose Six', Chelsea News and General Advertiser, 24 October 1947, page 9
^ Hatfield, Mary (25 February 1990). "The resurrection of St Peter's". The Sunday Times.
^ Historic England. "Church of St Peter (Grade II*) (1356980)". National Heritage List for England. Retrieved 20 March 2017.
^ "Review". Qype.^{[dead link‍]}
^ "St Peter's Eaton Square: PARISH PROFILE" (PDF). stpetereatonsquare.co.uk. September 2021. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
^ "Worship". www.stpetereatonsquare.co.uk. Retrieved 24 October 2021.
^ "Personal and General". The Near East: 290. 10 March 1921. Retrieved 3 November 2022. The engagement is announced of John Middleton, younger son of Mr and Mrs Gilbert Middleton of Glebe House, Headingley, Leeds and Dorothea, only daughter of the late Thomas Durant Beighton, I.C.S., Member of Bengal Legislative Council, and Mrs Arthur Saltren-Willett.
^ "Court and Personal". Yorkshire Post and Leeds Intelligencer Yorkshire, England. 7 December 1921. Retrieved 17 November 2022. The marriage arranged between Mr. J. A. Middleton, M.C., and Miss Dorothea Beighten will take place at St. Peter's, Eaton Square, January 4.
^ "Busy Cupids". The Tatler. 21 December 1921. Retrieved 17 November 2022. At St. Peter's Church, Eaton Square, on January 4, Mr. J. A. Middleton, MC, is to be married to Miss Dorothea Beighton.
^ "Crowd of 1000 at Stirling Moss' Wedding". Birmingham, West Midlands, England: The Birmingham Post & Birmingham Gazette. 8 October 1957. p. 17. Retrieved 22 April 2023.
^ UK Lord Lucan's son arrested at BBC.co.uk, accessed 25 February 2018

Sources

Pevsner, Nikolaus; Cherry, Bridget (revision) (1973) [1951]. London. The Buildings of England. Vol. 1 The Cities of London and Westminster (3rd ed.). Harmondsworth: Penguin Books. pp. 498–499. ISBN 0-14-071011-6.
Port, MH (2006). 600 New Churches: The Church Building Commission 1818–1856 (2nd ed.). Reading: Spire Books. p. 328. ISBN 978-1-904965-08-4.