St Peter, Leeds, West Yorkshire
As with the town in which it sits, Leeds Parish Church is huge, grand, interesting, and probably not straight away likeable. But like the town itself, the church soon reveals its friendliness and idiosyncrasies to them as are prepared to choose it as they locate it.
St Peter is a person of the excellent urban parish churches of England. Construction started in 1837, a handful of months right after the accession of the young Queen. It was the initially significant creating project in the newly created Diocese of Ripon, which experienced been carved out of the Archdiocese of York, and what a challenge it was. At very first it was planned as a large restore occupation on the 14th Century church which previously stood on this web page. The architect was Robert Chantrell. Even so, it grew to become obvious to Chantrell that a full rebuilding was required, and so it took place. The new church was finished in time for opening in 1841. The expense was a little limited of £30,000, about six million in present-day cash, which will not feel a large amount but of training course labour was proportionately so substantially cheaper then than currently. And not only was St Peter the first excellent church of the Victorian period, it was also the biggest church built in England for much more than a century, given that Sir Christopher Wren’s St Paul’s Cathedral in London.
The creating went up at the behest of the Vicar of Leeds, Walter Hook. Famously, his sole instruction to Chantrell was that the church ought to be ‘big plenty of to hold as many people as possible’. But this is no preaching barn, due to the fact Hook was an early follower of the Oxford Motion, and his church was supposed to offer a sacramental area as properly as an evangelising one particular, which points out its fully Gothic design and style – Hook and Chantrell have been rejecting the protestant-favored Classical kinds of the early 19th Century. In truth, as perfectly as St Peter, Hook’s main legacy to 19th Century Leeds would be the suburban mission churches in the Higher Church custom which he planted in the poorer areas of the town.
Between the congregation for the opening on 2nd September 1841 was Edward Pusey, just one of the leaders of the Oxford Movement. Also there that day was one more early adherent to the Movement, the 20 yr old Florence Nightingale.
To see the church that Chantrell developed you will need to stand on the sanctuary methods wanting west, with your back again to the altar, for George Road refashioned the east conclusion in the 1870s in the complete High Church fashion of that time, with marble by Salviati of Venice and his personal reredos. The glass higher than is collected Flemish glass. Your major impression wanting into the nave will be of major dark wooden, for the 1841 St Peter was basically however a product of the Georgian period, and it retains its elaborately carved galleries on a few sides of the nave, as very well as an enormous pulpit which sweeps significant up into area. Of terrific desire way too is the stained glass in the south aisle and west conclusion, for like the woodwork it carefully predates the ecclesiological motion that the following 10 years or so would provide.
The church is cruciform, but this is not promptly noticeable simply because of the way transepts and aisles have been hived off for use as chapels and the like. The fantastic tower sits previously mentioned the north transept, which types an entrance space. The chancel aisle to the east of it sorts a war memorial chapel, the outer north nave aisle now incorporates a cafe. Despite the size of the church, the woodwork and divisions can make it feel somewhat a cluttered put.
Walter Hook lies in effigy atop a tomb in the north chancel chapel in the medieval fashion. Certainly, if you failed to know, you could choose him for a 14th Century prelate. But there are in reality a few of survivals which predate the Victorian church, such as the painted Hardwick tomb of the late 17th Century on the south side of the chancel.
In 2011, St Peter was rebadged as Leeds Minster, but before long immediately after this the Diocese of Ripon was submerged along with the Dioceses of Bradford and Wakefield into the newly shaped Diocese of Leeds in 2014. The new Diocese, the most significant in England, at this time has three cathedrals of equivalent position at Ripon, Bradford and Wakefield, but there are extended phrase plans for a new cathedral in the terrific town at the coronary heart of the Diocese, and as element of these it is viewed as that Leeds Minster, Leeds Parish Church as was, could possibly just take on the position of a professional-cathedral.
This, I assume, would be a pity, for this extraordinary regenerated town justifies a thing far better, some thing large and wholly new that would be as a great deal a beacon for 21st Century Anglicanism as St Peter was for the 19th Century. Leeds is just one of the most important cities in Europe devoid of a Cathedral for its national church – Dublin and Berlin also spring to intellect. No, that new Cathedral demands to be in other places in the metropolis centre. As the job of Anglicanism in English lifestyle shifts and modifications, so St Peter turns into fewer practical as a flagship, and justifies to return to the muscular, sleeves-rolled-up parochial get the job done for which Walter Hook meant it.
Posted by Simon Knott on 2017-11-07 18:21:32
Tagged: , Leeds , Minster , West , yorkshire , nikon , d5300 , yorks
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