P h o t o B l o g

Monday 18 October 2010

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.

8 comments:

  1. Ah, I thought that might be a Waterloo church. It's very like our
    St Paul's and that too has a gallery around it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Church history is so fascinating! The politics make it all the more so.

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  3. Such a beautiful "cathedral!" I wish we could see the interior, too.... (hint, hint)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Really enjoyed reading the interesting history the church has! Great shot! Thanks for sharing it with us! Hope you have a good week!

    Sylvia

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  5. I was in that church in October 1997 for my dad's funeral.

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  6. I do enjoy visiting old catherdals. Beautiful one.

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  7. I wonder how many St. Peter's Churches there are in England. The division between the haves and the have-nots (actually people who really worked for a living) continued well into my younger years. Sad that it should have been carried over to religion. I'm sure things are very different now and I haven't been back long enough to form an opinion.

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  8. oh this is a nice shot, very much focused! thanks for sharing, hope you can visit mine too =)

    ReplyDelete

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