St Peter's Church, Finsthwaite facts for kids
Quick facts for kids St Peter's Church, Finsthwaite |
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St Peter's Church, Finsthwaite, from the north
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| OS grid reference | SD 369,878 |
| Location | Finsthwaite, Cumbria |
| Country | England |
| Denomination | Anglican |
| Website | http://www.finsthwaitechurch.uk/ |
| History | |
| Status | Parish church |
| Dedication | Saint Peter |
| Architecture | |
| Functional status | Active |
| Heritage designation | Grade II* |
| Designated | 23 July 1987 |
| Architect(s) | Paley and Austin |
| Architectural type | Church |
| Style | Romanesque Revival |
| Groundbreaking | 1873 |
| Completed | 1874 |
| Specifications | |
| Materials | Stone rubble with sandstone dressings Slate roof |
| Administration | |
| Parish | Finsthwaite |
| Deanery | Leven Valley |
| Archdeaconry | Windermere |
| Diocese | Carlisle |
| Province | York |
St Peter's Church is located in the small village of Finsthwaite, in Cumbria, England. It is an active church for the Anglican faith. This means it's a local church that serves the community. It is now part of a group of churches called the Cartmel Peninsula Team Ministry.
The church is a very special historic building. It is protected as a Grade II* listed building. This means it's considered very important and needs to be preserved for the future. A famous architecture team, Paley and Austin from Lancaster, designed St Peter's. They won a competition in 1873 to create churches in mountain areas. Experts who wrote about England's buildings called it "a brilliant design." They said it's hard to find other village churches as impressive as St Peter's. The church stands to the southeast of the village.
Contents
History of St Peter's Church
The church was built between 1873 and 1874. It was made to replace an older chapel that dated back to 1724 or 1725. A man named Thomas Newby Wilson, who owned the Stott Park Bobbin Mill, paid for the new church.
The church was designed to hold 200 people. It cost about £4,170 to build back then. This would be a huge amount of money today!
Architecture and Design
Outside the Church
St Peter's Church is built from rough stone blocks called coursed stone rubble. It has smooth sandstone around the windows and doors. The roof is made of slate tiles. The church's style is called Norman, which is a type of Romanesque Revival design.
The church's layout includes a main hall called a nave with four sections. There is also a porch on the north side and a chancel at the east end. A tower stands between the nave and the chancel. Next to the tower, on the north side, are rooms for the organ and a vestry (a room where priests prepare).
Along the sides of the nave, you'll see round-topped lancet windows. At the front (west end) of the church, there are two windows with another lancet window above them. The porch has a wooden frame on stone walls and a pointed roof called a gable. It leads to the round-arched main entrance of the church.
The tower has strong supports called buttresses on its north and south sides. There are also parts that stick out between these supports. The vestry has two windows. At the very east end of the chancel, there are three windows. The middle one is wider, and there's a lancet window above them. A cross decoration called a finial sits on the roof's gable at the east end. The chancel also has two windows on its south side.
Higher up on the tower, there is a diamond-shaped clock face. The tower has a tall, pointed roof shaped like a pyramid. On the north and south sides of this roof, there are louvred dormer windows. On the east and west sides, there are stone dormers with round-arched openings for the bells.
Inside the Church
The ceiling inside the church is painted with beautiful scrollwork designs. It also features angels holding copies of the Beatitudes, which are blessings from the Bible. Around the nave and the arches of the windows, there is a patterned border called a stencilled frieze. Some of this has been covered over time.
The reredos, which is a decorated screen behind the altar, is made from alabaster and mosaic tiles. It was created in 1883 by a company called Salviati. All the other furniture in the church was designed by the architects, Paley and Austin. This includes the altar rails, the floor of the chancel, the pulpit (where sermons are given), the lectern (where readings are done), and the font (used for baptisms). The font is made from fossiliferous marble, which means it contains fossils!
The church has beautiful stained glass windows. The windows at the east and west ends were made by Shrigley and Hunt. The west windows even have musical notes from Handel's famous work, Messiah. The organ, which has two keyboards, was built in 1875 by Jardine and Company from Manchester.
See also
- Grade II* listed buildings in South Lakeland
- Listed buildings in Colton, Cumbria
- List of ecclesiastical works by Paley and Austin
- Plan of Finsthwaite Churchyard
