St Peter's Church, Bournemouth
Encyclopedia
St Peter's Church is a Church of England parish church
in Bournemouth
in the English
county of Dorset
. The building, which is a Grade I listed building, was completed in 1879 to a design by G.E. Street
as the founding mother church of Bournemouth. It has unusual paintings, notable stained glass and alabaster, and a renowned musical tradition. The chancel has been described as 'one of the richest Gothic Revival interiors in England'.
was commissioned to create a finer church to match the beauty of the town. It was constructed between 1854 and 1879 on the foundations of the 1840s predecessor. (G.E. Street later designed the Royal Courts of Justice
in The Strand
in London.)
The church, which sits opposite Beales department store in the heart of the town centre, was the founding mother church of Bournemouth. The 202 ft high spire is a landmark across the town centre and beyond. It has unusual paintings, notable stained glass and alabaster.
The boys' and girls' choirs, together with adult altos, tenors and basses, sing two choral services each Sunday during term time. The St. Peter's Singers, a mixed adult voluntary choir who rehearse once a month, sing at occasional services and festivals.
: the Prime Minister took his last communion here.
, a feminist author, and William Godwin
, a radical thinker, are buried here alongside their daughter, Mary Shelley
, author of Frankenstein
.
Mary Shelley's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley
died in the Gulf of Spezia in 1822. When his body was recovered, his friend took his heart. It now sits in the Shelley family vault. Mary Shelley's son, Sir Percy Florence Shelley
bought land in Boscombe
to build a house, believing that the balmy climate would help his sick wife and his mother. However, Mary Shelley never lived in Boscombe Manor. Sir Percy died in 1889 and his wife, Lady Jane Shelley died 10 years later. The family now rests in the family vault at St Peter's Church.
Church of England parish church
A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative region, known as a parish.-Parishes in England:...
in Bournemouth
Bournemouth
Bournemouth is a large coastal resort town in the ceremonial county of Dorset, England. According to the 2001 Census the town has a population of 163,444, making it the largest settlement in Dorset. It is also the largest settlement between Southampton and Plymouth...
in the English
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
county of Dorset
Dorset
Dorset , is a county in South West England on the English Channel coast. The county town is Dorchester which is situated in the south. The Hampshire towns of Bournemouth and Christchurch joined the county with the reorganisation of local government in 1974...
. The building, which is a Grade I listed building, was completed in 1879 to a design by G.E. Street
George Edmund Street
George Edmund Street was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex.- Life :Street was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington. George went to school at Mitcham in about 1830, and later to the Camberwell collegiate school, which he left in 1839...
as the founding mother church of Bournemouth. It has unusual paintings, notable stained glass and alabaster, and a renowned musical tradition. The chancel has been described as 'one of the richest Gothic Revival interiors in England'.
Architecture
St. Peter's was built over a period of twenty-four years from 1855 at the instigation of the vicar, the Reverend Alexander Morden Bennett, to replace an earlier building. G.E. StreetGeorge Edmund Street
George Edmund Street was an English architect, born at Woodford in Essex.- Life :Street was the third son of Thomas Street, solicitor, by his second wife, Mary Anne Millington. George went to school at Mitcham in about 1830, and later to the Camberwell collegiate school, which he left in 1839...
was commissioned to create a finer church to match the beauty of the town. It was constructed between 1854 and 1879 on the foundations of the 1840s predecessor. (G.E. Street later designed the Royal Courts of Justice
Royal Courts of Justice
The Royal Courts of Justice, commonly called the Law Courts, is the building in London which houses the Court of Appeal of England and Wales and the High Court of Justice of England and Wales...
in The Strand
Strand, London
Strand is a street in the City of Westminster, London, England. The street is just over three-quarters of a mile long. It currently starts at Trafalgar Square and runs east to join Fleet Street at Temple Bar, which marks the boundary of the City of London at this point, though its historical length...
in London.)
The church, which sits opposite Beales department store in the heart of the town centre, was the founding mother church of Bournemouth. The 202 ft high spire is a landmark across the town centre and beyond. It has unusual paintings, notable stained glass and alabaster.
Music
The church has an organ of three manuals and 52 stops by Harrison and Harrison in 1914, rebuilt by Rushworth and Dreaper in 1976 - the details can be found on the National Pipe Organ Register. There is also a Steinway Model D grand piano in the church, and a Kawai grand piano in the song room.The boys' and girls' choirs, together with adult altos, tenors and basses, sing two choral services each Sunday during term time. The St. Peter's Singers, a mixed adult voluntary choir who rehearse once a month, sing at occasional services and festivals.
Organists of St. Peter's
- 1869 Thomas Burton
- 1880 Duncan Hume
- 1905 James Chandler BMus FRCO
- 1953 Michael Peterson MA FRCO (later organist, Tewkesbury AbbeyTewkesbury AbbeyThe Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Tewkesbury in the English county of Gloucestershire is the second largest parish church in the country and a former Benedictine monastery.-History:...
) - 1966 H.V. Sayles (formerly assistant organist, Guildford CathedralGuildford CathedralThe Cathedral Church of the Holy Spirit, Guildford is the Anglican cathedral at Guildford, Surrey, England.-Construction:Guildford was made a diocese in its own right in 1927, and work on its new cathedral, designed by Sir Edward Maufe, began nine years later, with the foundation stone being laid...
) - 1967 Frederick Hewitt MA MusB FRCO
- 1968 Cyril Knight FRCO
- 1971 John Belcher MA FRCO (formerly assistant organist, Chester CathedralChester CathedralChester Cathedral is the mother church of the Church of England Diocese of Chester, and is located in the city of Chester, Cheshire, England. The cathedral, formerly St Werburgh's abbey church of a Benedictine monastery, is dedicated to Christ and the Blessed Virgin Mary...
, later organist, Tewkesbury AbbeyTewkesbury AbbeyThe Abbey of the Blessed Virgin Mary at Tewkesbury in the English county of Gloucestershire is the second largest parish church in the country and a former Benedictine monastery.-History:...
) - 1981 Stephen Carleston MA FRCO (now director of music, Bolton Parish Church)
- 1993 David Beeby BMus FRCO (now head of music, Poole Grammar School)
- 2002 Charles Spanner BMus
- 2003 Ben Lamb MusB (now director of music, Lichfield CathedralLichfield CathedralLichfield Cathedral is situated in Lichfield, Staffordshire, England. It is the only medieval English cathedral with three spires. The Diocese of Lichfield covers all of Staffordshire, much of Shropshire and part of the Black Country and West Midlands...
) - 2007 Stephen Le Prevost BA FTCL (formerly assistant organist, Westminster AbbeyWestminster AbbeyThe Collegiate Church of St Peter at Westminster, popularly known as Westminster Abbey, is a large, mainly Gothic church, in the City of Westminster, London, United Kingdom, located just to the west of the Palace of Westminster. It is the traditional place of coronation and burial site for English,...
) - 2008 David Coram (formerly assistant organist, Romsey AbbeyRomsey AbbeyRomsey Abbey is a parish church of the Church of England in Romsey, a market town in Hampshire, England. Until the dissolution it was the church of a Benedictine nunnery.-Background:...
) - 2011 Sam Hanson MA ARCO (formerly organ scholar, Jesus College, CambridgeJesus College, CambridgeJesus College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The College was founded in 1496 on the site of a Benedictine nunnery by John Alcock, then Bishop of Ely...
)
Notable worshippers and burials
St Peter's has famous connections including William Ewart GladstoneWilliam Ewart Gladstone
William Ewart Gladstone FRS FSS was a British Liberal statesman. In a career lasting over sixty years, he served as Prime Minister four separate times , more than any other person. Gladstone was also Britain's oldest Prime Minister, 84 years old when he resigned for the last time...
: the Prime Minister took his last communion here.
- Sir Dan GodfreyDan GodfreySir Dan Godfrey was a British music conductor and member of a musical dynasty that included his father Dan Godfrey...
, who started Bournemouth Symphony OrchestraBournemouth Symphony OrchestraThe Bournemouth Symphony Orchestra is an English orchestra. Originally based in Bournemouth, the BSO moved its offices to the adjacent town of Poole in 1979....
in 1896 is buried here. - Major General Richard Clement MoodyRichard MoodyMajor-General Richard Clement Moody was a Lieutenant-Governor, and later Governor, of the Falkland Islands, and the first Lieutenant-Governor of the Colony of British Columbia. While serving under this post, he selected the site of the new capital, New Westminster...
, Lieutenant Governor of the Falkland IslandsFalkland IslandsThe Falkland Islands are an archipelago in the South Atlantic Ocean, located about from the coast of mainland South America. The archipelago consists of East Falkland, West Falkland and 776 lesser islands. The capital, Stanley, is on East Falkland...
and the joint founder of British ColumbiaBritish ColumbiaBritish Columbia is the westernmost of Canada's provinces and is known for its natural beauty, as reflected in its Latin motto, Splendor sine occasu . Its name was chosen by Queen Victoria in 1858...
. - Lewis TregonwellLewis TregonwellLewis Dymoke Grosvenor Tregonwell ; captain in the Dorset Yeomanry and historic figure in the early development of what is now Bournemouth.-Early life:...
: Founder of Bournemouth. In 1810, Tregonwell bought land from the Lord of the Manor of Christchurch and built a house next to the mouth of the River Bourne (which runs through the lower gardens today). His house was called The Mansion, and is now part of the Royal Exeter Hotel. - John KebleJohn KebleJohn Keble was an English churchman and poet, one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement, and gave his name to Keble College, Oxford.-Early life:...
: Vicar at Hursley in the New Forest, a professor of poetry at Oxford and pioneer of the Oxford MovementOxford MovementThe Oxford Movement was a movement of High Church Anglicans, eventually developing into Anglo-Catholicism. The movement, whose members were often associated with the University of Oxford, argued for the reinstatement of lost Christian traditions of faith and their inclusion into Anglican liturgy...
. John and his wife moved to Bournemouth in 1865, he believing that being by the water would make his sick wife better. They stayed at 'Brookside', which is now the 'Hermitage Hotel'. He died in 1866. The Italianate style tower that remains is named after him. There are two stained glass windows of him in his cassock in the church.
Shelley family
The Shelley Family has a long connection with Bournemouth. Mary WollstonecraftMary Wollstonecraft
Mary Wollstonecraft was an eighteenth-century British writer, philosopher, and advocate of women's rights. During her brief career, she wrote novels, treatises, a travel narrative, a history of the French Revolution, a conduct book, and a children's book...
, a feminist author, and William Godwin
William Godwin
William Godwin was an English journalist, political philosopher and novelist. He is considered one of the first exponents of utilitarianism, and the first modern proponent of anarchism...
, a radical thinker, are buried here alongside their daughter, Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley
Mary Shelley was a British novelist, short story writer, dramatist, essayist, biographer, and travel writer, best known for her Gothic novel Frankenstein: or, The Modern Prometheus . She also edited and promoted the works of her husband, the Romantic poet and philosopher Percy Bysshe Shelley...
, author of Frankenstein
Frankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
.
Mary Shelley's husband, Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley
Percy Bysshe Shelley was one of the major English Romantic poets and is critically regarded as among the finest lyric poets in the English language. Shelley was famous for his association with John Keats and Lord Byron...
died in the Gulf of Spezia in 1822. When his body was recovered, his friend took his heart. It now sits in the Shelley family vault. Mary Shelley's son, Sir Percy Florence Shelley
Percy Florence Shelley
Sir Percy Florence Shelley, 3rd Baronet was the son and only surviving child of Percy Bysshe Shelley and his second wife, Mary Shelley. He was thus the only grandchild of Mary Wollstonecraft...
bought land in Boscombe
Boscombe
Boscombe is a suburb of Bournemouth. Located to the east of Bournemouth town centre and west of Southbourne, It developed rapidly from a small village as a seaside resort alongside Bournemouth after the first Boscombe pier was built in 1888...
to build a house, believing that the balmy climate would help his sick wife and his mother. However, Mary Shelley never lived in Boscombe Manor. Sir Percy died in 1889 and his wife, Lady Jane Shelley died 10 years later. The family now rests in the family vault at St Peter's Church.