St Peter, Leeds, West Yorkshire
As with the metropolis in which it sits, Leeds Parish Church is wide, grand, intriguing, and maybe not right away likeable. But like the metropolis by itself, the church soon reveals its friendliness and idiosyncrasies to them as are geared up to take it as they uncover it.
St Peter is one particular of the fantastic city parish churches of England. Building started in 1837, a couple of months just after the accession of the young Queen. It was the very first important creating undertaking in the newly established Diocese of Ripon, which experienced been carved out of the Archdiocese of York, and what a undertaking it was. At first it was planned as a massive maintenance task on the 14th Century church which previously stood on this internet site. The architect was Robert Chantrell. On the other hand, it turned distinct to Chantrell that a comprehensive rebuilding was essential, and so it occurred. The new church was completed in time for opening in 1841. The value was a minor quick of £30,000, about six million in present day dollars, which won’t seem a ton but of training course labour was proportionately so substantially cheaper then than now. And not only was St Peter the first wonderful church of the Victorian era, it was also the greatest church built in England for more than a century, given that Sir Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The constructing went up at the behest of the Vicar of Leeds, Walter Hook. Famously, his sole instruction to Chantrell was that the church should really be ‘big adequate to hold as several people today as possible’. But this is no preaching barn, simply because Hook was an early follower of the Oxford Motion, and his church was meant to provide a sacramental place as perfectly as an evangelising one, which clarifies its entirely Gothic design and style – Hook and Chantrell ended up rejecting the protestant-preferred Classical types of the early 19th Century. Without a doubt, as well as St Peter, Hook’s major legacy to 19th Century Leeds would be the suburban mission church buildings in the Significant Church custom which he planted in the poorer parts of the metropolis.
Amongst the congregation for the opening on 2nd September 1841 was Edward Pusey, a person of the leaders of the Oxford Motion. Also there that day was a different early adherent to the Motion, the 20 calendar year outdated Florence Nightingale.
To see the church that Chantrell built you will need to stand on the sanctuary techniques looking west, with your back again to the altar, for George Road refashioned the east conclusion in the 1870s in the thorough Superior Church fashion of that time, with marble by Salviati of Venice and his have reredos. The glass earlier mentioned is gathered Flemish glass. Your main impression wanting into the nave will be of hefty dark wood, for the 1841 St Peter was effectively nonetheless a product or service of the Georgian era, and it retains its elaborately carved galleries on three sides of the nave, as very well as an tremendous pulpit which sweeps substantial up into house. Of good desire too is the stained glass in the south aisle and west close, for like the woodwork it thoroughly predates the ecclesiological motion that the future 10 years or so would deliver.
The church is cruciform, but this is not straight away obvious because of the way transepts and aisles have been hived off for use as chapels and the like. The good tower sits above the north transept, which sorts an entrance location. The chancel aisle to the east of it sorts a war memorial chapel, the outer north nave aisle now consists of a cafe. Inspite of the size of the church, the woodwork and divisions can make it appear to be relatively a cluttered spot.
Walter Hook lies in effigy atop a tomb in the north chancel chapel in the medieval style. Certainly, if you didn’t know, you may acquire him for a 14th Century prelate. But there are in truth a pair of survivals which predate the Victorian church, like the painted Hardwick tomb of the late 17th Century on the south aspect of the chancel.
In 2011, St Peter was rebadged as Leeds Minster, but soon soon after this the Diocese of Ripon was submerged alongside with the Dioceses of Bradford and Wakefield into the freshly fashioned Diocese of Leeds in 2014. The new Diocese, the biggest in England, now has 3 cathedrals of equal standing at Ripon, Bradford and Wakefield, but there are extensive phrase options for a new cathedral in the excellent town at the heart of the Diocese, and as component of these it is regarded that Leeds Minster, Leeds Parish Church as was, may well acquire on the position of a professional-cathedral.
This, I imagine, would be a pity, for this extraordinary regenerated town warrants anything much better, anything big and wholly new that would be as significantly a beacon for 21st Century Anglicanism as St Peter was for the 19th Century. Leeds is just one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe without the need of a Cathedral for its national church – Dublin and Berlin also spring to mind. No, that new Cathedral desires to be in other places in the town centre. As the part of Anglicanism in English culture shifts and alterations, so St Peter results in being considerably less practical as a flagship, and warrants to return to the muscular, sleeves-rolled-up parochial do the job for which Walter Hook meant it.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2017-11-07 18:21:36
Tagged: , Leeds , Minster , West , yorkshire , nikon , d5300 , yorks
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