St Peter's Church 1868
Watercolour landscape painting on paper of the porch of St. Peter's Church, Hinton Road, Bournemouth, with the church slightly visible in the background. The porch has two small wooden gates and a tiled roof with a cross on it. 'Bournemouth 1875' is written on the reverse in pencil and '682' is written above it.
St Peter’s Church
The
soaring spire of St Peter’s Church reaches 202ft (62m) to the sky. This is
exactly half the height of Salisbury Cathedral, though whether by accident or
design isn’t known.
The
history of St Peter’s goes back to 1838 when a temporary chapel was built in
The Square on the present site of Debenham’s, converted from two cottages on
that plot. In 1841 the foundation stone was laid for the first permanent church
on the present site. This church was consecrated in 1845 on the appointment of
the Rev Alexander Morden Bennett as its first vicar. Morden Bennett was to
become the leading figure in the development of not only St Peter’s, but in the
formation of other churches and schools around Bournemouth.
In
1853 Morden Bennett commissioned George Edmund Street to prepare plans for a
much larger church, with construction taking places in stages, to match the
growth of Bournemouth itself. The new church incorporated the south aisle of
the original building, but as the new St Peter’s grew the remainder of the
first permanent church was demolished.
Peter Kazmierczak, Senior Heritage Librarian,
Bournemouth Libraries
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