St Peter's Church

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Today's photo shows St Peter's Church in Ashton's West End. Last week I showed a photo of the Albion Church, the size of which indicates the popularity of the Non-Conformist religious movement in the Ashton area. St Peter's Church answered this by providing an Anglican church for the people in the growing West End of Ashton.

The church opened in 1824 and is a Grade 2 star listed building. Unusually it had a gallery around three sides. The tower, built in a gothic style, is 128 feet high. It is a very grand-looking building which, in many towns, you would have expected to have been the parish church. Ashton, however, already had the much older St Michael's Church fulfilling that position.

After the Napoleonic Wars and the victory at Waterloo, Parliament gave the Church of England a million pounds to erect a number of magnificent churches in thanks for the victory. St Peter's Church was one of the churches that resulted. The first vicar was John Hutchinson, who had been the assistant curate at St Michael's.

Most of the working people of the area saw the Church of England as being the church for the rich and the bosses and continued to go to the Non-Conformist churches in the area.

See Google Aerial View of this location. See Birds Eye View of this location.

"St Peter's Church" is my contribution to this week's "My World" feature. Please check out the other blogs participating in this week's My World.