St Peter’s dates from 1894 and at that time Staines was all one parish, dependent upon our sister church of St Mary at the other end of the town. However, with the arrival of the railway in 1848 and subsequent expansion of the town, in 1874 the then Vicar of Staines, Canon Furse, recognised the need for a spiritual centre in the area where St Peter’s stands today.
He arranged for a small brick building to be erected at the corner of Wyatt Road and Langley Road to be used as school-church for the locality. In time it became part of the Wyatt Road School which still stands, although now not used as a school. This small mission church continued until 1885 when a larger iron building was purchased by public subscription, having previously done duty as a church in North London. This was erected on the corner of Edgell Road and Budebury Road where flats now stand and seated twice as many people as the old building.
In 1891 it was realised that the iron church had also become out-grown and the PCC began looking for a larger building, without success because of the enormous cost. A year earlier, Sir Edward Clarke, KC, MP and Solicitor-General, had moved with his family into Thorncote where Penton Court was later built in Jamnagar Close, just down-river from St Peter’s. When attending the iron church he found it ‘too hot in summer and much too cold in winter’ and when the land on which St Peter’s now stands became available from the Thames Lodge Estate, he offered to pay for a new church to be built there if his neighbours would buy the land, which they did.
The building was commissioned and on 22 July 1893 the foundation stone was laid by his wife, Lady Kathleen Clarke. Amazingly, just one year and seven days later, on 28 July 1894, St Peter’s Church was consecrated and to this day remains a testament to the skills of the builders, Goddard & Son of Farnham. In today’s money the cost of building would possibly have been about £7m. In time, Sir Edward also paid to have a peal of eight bells installed (the largest named ‘Sir Edward’) and he and his family also presented many of the church’s vibrant stained glass windows and other furnishings in acts of extraordinary generosity. This generosity continued in 1910 with his purchase of land adjacent to the site of St Peter’s where he built Peterhouse in which to live, with the proviso that on his and his wife’s death, it would become the parish vicarage.
Interestingly, the slight rise on which the church was built to mitigate the flood risk was achieved by excavating material from the field at the rear of a residence then owned by churchwarden Mr W B Puckle JP and which now forms the lake at the rear of Riverbank Flats, again just down-river from St Peter’s. The iron church mentioned above continued in use as the parish hall until the present hall complex was built next to St Peter’s in 1964.
If you would like to read more about our lovely church building itself and its glorious stained-glass windows, then do look at http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/prynne/7.html by Jacqueline Banerjee. A more detailed history of St Peter’s can be found in the 50th anniversary Souvenir of the Jubilee of St Peter’s Church, Staines published by the parish in 1944, a copy of which is held in the parish office. See also pages 202-203 of Sir Edward’s autobiography The Story of My Life published by E P Dutton in 1919 at https://archive.org/details/storyofmylife00claruoft/page/202
He arranged for a small brick building to be erected at the corner of Wyatt Road and Langley Road to be used as school-church for the locality. In time it became part of the Wyatt Road School which still stands, although now not used as a school. This small mission church continued until 1885 when a larger iron building was purchased by public subscription, having previously done duty as a church in North London. This was erected on the corner of Edgell Road and Budebury Road where flats now stand and seated twice as many people as the old building.
In 1891 it was realised that the iron church had also become out-grown and the PCC began looking for a larger building, without success because of the enormous cost. A year earlier, Sir Edward Clarke, KC, MP and Solicitor-General, had moved with his family into Thorncote where Penton Court was later built in Jamnagar Close, just down-river from St Peter’s. When attending the iron church he found it ‘too hot in summer and much too cold in winter’ and when the land on which St Peter’s now stands became available from the Thames Lodge Estate, he offered to pay for a new church to be built there if his neighbours would buy the land, which they did.
The building was commissioned and on 22 July 1893 the foundation stone was laid by his wife, Lady Kathleen Clarke. Amazingly, just one year and seven days later, on 28 July 1894, St Peter’s Church was consecrated and to this day remains a testament to the skills of the builders, Goddard & Son of Farnham. In today’s money the cost of building would possibly have been about £7m. In time, Sir Edward also paid to have a peal of eight bells installed (the largest named ‘Sir Edward’) and he and his family also presented many of the church’s vibrant stained glass windows and other furnishings in acts of extraordinary generosity. This generosity continued in 1910 with his purchase of land adjacent to the site of St Peter’s where he built Peterhouse in which to live, with the proviso that on his and his wife’s death, it would become the parish vicarage.
Interestingly, the slight rise on which the church was built to mitigate the flood risk was achieved by excavating material from the field at the rear of a residence then owned by churchwarden Mr W B Puckle JP and which now forms the lake at the rear of Riverbank Flats, again just down-river from St Peter’s. The iron church mentioned above continued in use as the parish hall until the present hall complex was built next to St Peter’s in 1964.
If you would like to read more about our lovely church building itself and its glorious stained-glass windows, then do look at http://www.victorianweb.org/art/architecture/prynne/7.html by Jacqueline Banerjee. A more detailed history of St Peter’s can be found in the 50th anniversary Souvenir of the Jubilee of St Peter’s Church, Staines published by the parish in 1944, a copy of which is held in the parish office. See also pages 202-203 of Sir Edward’s autobiography The Story of My Life published by E P Dutton in 1919 at https://archive.org/details/storyofmylife00claruoft/page/202
|
Contact and General Enquiries
The parish office is open Tuesday and Thursday 10:30am to 12:30pm for all your general and hall booking enquiries. Parish Office, St Peter’s Church Hall, Laleham Road, Staines, Middlesex TW18 2DX Tel: 01784 469155 Email: [email protected] |
|