St Peter's Church, Bolton-le-Moors, commonly known as Bolton Parish Church, is a

Church of England parish church A parish church in the Church of England is the church which acts as the religious centre for the people within each Church of England parish (the smallest and most basic Church of England administrative unit; since the 19th century sometimes ca ...

Bolton Bolton (, locally ) is a large town in Greater Manchester in North West England, formerly a part of Lancashire. A former mill town, Bolton has been a production centre for textiles since Flemish weavers settled in the area in the 14th centu ...

Greater Manchester Greater Manchester is a metropolitan county and combined authority area in North West England, with a population of 2.8 million; comprising ten metropolitan boroughs: Manchester, Salford, Bolton, Bury, Oldham, Rochdale, Stockport, Tameside, ...

, England. The parish church, dedicated to

St Peter ) (Simeon, Simon) , birth_date = , birth_place = Bethsaida, Gaulanitis, Syria, Roman Empire , death_date = Between AD 64–68 , death_place = probably Vatican Hill, Rome, Roman Italy, Italia, Roman Empire , parents = John (or Jonah; Jona) , ...

, is an example of the Gothic Revival style. The church is recorded in the

National Heritage List for England The National Heritage List for England (NHLE) is England's official database of protected heritage assets. It includes details of all English listed buildings, scheduled monuments, register of historic parks and gardens, protected shipwrecks, a ...

as a Grade II*

listed building In the United Kingdom, a listed building or listed structure is one that has been placed on one of the four statutory lists maintained by Historic England in England, Historic Environment Scotland in Scotland, in Wales, and the Northern Irel ...

, having been designated in 1974. St Peter's is an active parish church in the Diocese of Manchester and is part of the Bolton

deanery A deanery (or decanate) is an ecclesiastical entity in the Roman Catholic Church, the Eastern Orthodox Church, the Anglican Communion, the Evangelical Church in Germany, and the Church of Norway. A deanery is either the jurisdiction or residence ...

and Bolton

archdeaconry An archdeacon is a senior clergy position in the Church of the East, Chaldean Catholic Church, Syriac Orthodox Church, Anglican Communion, St Thomas Christians, Eastern Orthodox churches and some other Christian denominations, above that of most ...

History

The church, on a hill overlooking the

River Croal The River Croal is a river located in Greater Manchester, England. It is a tributary of the River Irwell. Rising at the confluence of Middle Brook and Deane Church Brook, it flows eastwards through Bolton, collecting ''Gilnow Brook'' and t ...

, is the fourth to be built on the site. Until the 1840s the ancient

ecclesiastical parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

Bolton-le-Moors Bolton le Moors (also known as Bolton le Moors St Peter) was a large civil parish and ecclesiastical parish in hundred of Salford in the historic county of Lancashire, England. It was administered from St Peter's Church, Bolton in the township of ...

covered a large area and was divided into

townships A township is a kind of human settlement or administrative subdivision, with its meaning varying in different countries. Although the term is occasionally associated with an urban area, that tends to be an exception to the rule. In Australia, Ca ...

, some of which had chapels of ease. The modern parish covers the town centre and its immediate surroundings.Bolton-le-Moors: St Peter (Parish Map)
URL accessed 4 July 2016. Demolition of the 15th-century church in 1866 revealed several pre-Norman stones under the tower, including a

preaching cross A preaching cross is a Christian cross sometimes surmounting a pulpit, which is erected outdoors to designate a preaching place. In Britain and Ireland, many free-standing upright crosses – or high crosses – were erected. Some of these cros ...

in three pieces. Fragments of other crosses and stones from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, a sepulchral slab, stone coffin, and the remains of a 14th-century stone female figure, indicate that two earlier churches had existed on the same site, one Anglo Saxon and one

Norman Norman or Normans may refer to: Ethnic and cultural identity * The Normans, a people partly descended from Norse Vikings who settled in the territory of Normandy in France in the 10th and 11th centuries ** People or things connected with the Norm ...

. Little is known of the first two buildings, but the squat, 15th-century church which replaced the Norman structure had an

embattled A battlement in defensive architecture, such as that of city walls or castles, comprises a parapet (i.e., a defensive low wall between chest-height and head-height), in which gaps or indentations, which are often rectangular, occur at interva ...

west tower, a

chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

, nave, north and south

aisle An aisle is, in general, a space for walking with rows of non-walking spaces on both sides. Aisles with seating on both sides can be seen in airplanes, certain types of buildings, such as churches, cathedrals, synagogues, meeting halls, parl ...

s and a south porch which was rebuilt in 1694. Its east window had seven lights. The Chetham and Bradford Chapels occupied the east end of the aisles on either side of the chancel. Galleries were added in the 18th century and the aisle walls were raised and windows inserted to light them. Though the church was modified over the years, the population of Bolton expanded rapidly during the

Industrial Revolution The Industrial Revolution was the transition to new manufacturing processes in Great Britain, continental Europe, and the United States, that occurred during the period from around 1760 to about 1820–1840. This transition included going f ...

and the church, in a poor state of repair, became too small and was demolished. Fragments of stone and other artefacts from the first three buildings are displayed in the museum corner of the present church. The present church, built between 1867 and 1871, was designed by the Lancaster architect E. G. Paley. It cost £47,000 (equivalent to £ in ), and was paid for by Peter Ormrod, a local cotton spinner and banker, of Halliwell Hall.

Structure

The church is wide, long, and high. Its tower is high, and is the highest church tower in the historic county of Lancashire.

Exterior

The church, built in

ashlar Ashlar () is finely dressed (cut, worked) stone, either an individual stone that has been worked until squared, or a structure built from such stones. Ashlar is the finest stone masonry unit, generally rectangular cuboid, mentioned by Vitruv ...

sandstone Sandstone is a clastic sedimentary rock composed mainly of sand-sized (0.0625 to 2 mm) silicate grains. Sandstones comprise about 20–25% of all sedimentary rocks. Most sandstone is composed of quartz or feldspar (both silicates) ...

with

slate Slate is a fine-grained, foliated, homogeneous metamorphic rock derived from an original shale-type sedimentary rock composed of clay or volcanic ash through low-grade regional metamorphism. It is the finest grained foliated metamorphic rock. ...

roofs, has a nave with

clerestory In architecture, a clerestory ( ; , also clearstory, clearstorey, or overstorey) is a high section of wall that contains windows above eye level. Its purpose is to admit light, fresh air, or both. Historically, ''clerestory'' denoted an upper l ...

and north and south aisles,

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform churches, a transept is an area set crosswise to the nave in a cruciform (" cross-shaped") building wi ...

s, a chancel with a

lady chapel A Lady chapel or lady chapel is a traditional British term for a chapel dedicated to "Our Lady", Mary, mother of Jesus, particularly those inside a cathedral or other large church. The chapels are also known as a Mary chapel or a Marian chapel, a ...

and

pipe organ The pipe organ is a musical instrument that produces sound by driving pressurized air (called ''wind'') through the organ pipes selected from a keyboard. Because each pipe produces a single pitch, the pipes are provided in sets called ''ranks' ...

chamber. On the south side of the south aisle is a gabled porch with a

wrought-iron Wrought iron is an iron alloy with a very low carbon content (less than 0.08%) in contrast to that of cast iron (2.1% to 4%). It is a semi-fused mass of iron with fibrous slag inclusions (up to 2% by weight), which give it a wood-like "grain" t ...

screen. The

vestry A vestry was a committee for the local secular and ecclesiastical government for a parish in England, Wales and some English colonies which originally met in the vestry or sacristy of the parish church, and consequently became known colloquiall ...

, which was added later at its north east corner, is reminiscent of the

chapter house A chapter house or chapterhouse is a building or room that is part of a cathedral, monastery or collegiate church in which meetings are held. When attached to a cathedral, the cathedral chapter meets there. In monasteries, the whole communi ...

s of pre-

Reformation The Reformation (alternatively named the Protestant Reformation or the European Reformation) was a major movement within Western Christianity in 16th-century Europe that posed a religious and political challenge to the Catholic Church and i ...

abbeys An abbey is a type of monastery used by members of a religious order under the governance of an abbot or abbess. Abbeys provide a complex of buildings and land for religious activities, work, and housing of Christian monks and nuns. The conce ...

. The four-stage tower projects from the west end of the north aisle and has clasping

buttress A buttress is an architectural structure built against or projecting from a wall which serves to support or reinforce the wall. Buttresses are fairly common on more ancient buildings, as a means of providing support to act against the lateral (s ...

es at each corner which terminate in crocketted

finial A finial (from '' la, finis'', end) or hip-knob is an element marking the top or end of some object, often formed to be a decorative feature. In architecture, it is a small decorative device, employed to emphasize the apex of a dome, spire, towe ...

s. There are two-light decorated,

lancet window A lancet window is a tall, narrow window with a pointed arch at its top. It acquired the "lancet" name from its resemblance to a lance. Instances of this architectural element are typical of Gothic church edifices of the earliest period. Lancet ...

s in the second and third stages, and paired bell-chamber lights at the fourth stage. Its west door is in a moulded archway with polished

granite Granite () is a coarse-grained (phaneritic) intrusive igneous rock composed mostly of quartz, alkali feldspar, and plagioclase. It forms from magma with a high content of silica and alkali metal oxides that slowly cools and solidifies underg ...

shafts. The door, designed by Hubert Austin, retains its original ornate hammered ironwork door furniture. The church has a five-bay nave, divided by buttresses with lean-to aisles and a

above. In each bay is a three-light decorated window with tracery. The clerestory has paired windows with ball flower decorations and

gargoyle In architecture, and specifically Gothic architecture, a gargoyle () is a carved or formed grotesque with a spout designed to convey water from a roof and away from the side of a building, thereby preventing it from running down masonry wal ...

s. There are traceried

pinnacle A pinnacle is an architectural element originally forming the cap or crown of a buttress or small turret, but afterwards used on parapets at the corners of towers and in many other situations. The pinnacle looks like a small spire. It was main ...

s at the east end of

. There is a seven-light east window in the chancel with lancet windows above it. The north transept has a seven-light window and there is a five-light decorated window in the south transept. The lady chapel to the east of the chancel has two two-light windows to south and a three-light east window.

Fittings and furnishings

The chancel and west end of the nave have

encaustic tile Encaustic tiles are ceramic tiles in which the pattern or figure on the surface is not a product of the glaze but of different colors of clay. They are usually of two colours but a tile may be composed of as many as six. The pattern appears inla ...

d floors by Minton. The octagonal wood panelled

pulpit A pulpit is a raised stand for preachers in a Christian church. The origin of the word is the Latin ''pulpitum'' (platform or staging). The traditional pulpit is raised well above the surrounding floor for audibility and visibility, access ...

wraps round the northern crossing

pier Seaside pleasure pier in Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th century.">England.html" ;"title="Brighton, England">Brighton, England. The first seaside piers were built in England in the early 19th ...

, it has stone base and a wrought iron rail to the stairs. The nave seating, canopied civic stalls and

choir stalls A choir, also sometimes called quire, is the area of a church or cathedral that provides seating for the clergy and church choir. It is in the western part of the chancel, between the nave and the sanctuary, which houses the altar and Church ta ...

are original. Three

misericord A misericord (sometimes named mercy seat, like the biblical object) is a small wooden structure formed on the underside of a folding seat in a church which, when the seat is folded up, is intended to act as a shelf to support a person in a par ...

s were saved from the 15th-century church. Of the eight bells installed when the church opened, five were cast in 1699 by Henry Bagley of Ecton in Northamptonshire and three by

Rudhall of Gloucester Rudhall of Gloucester was a family business of bell founders in the city of Gloucester, England, who between 1684 and 1835 cast more than 5,000 bells. History There had been a tradition of bell casting in Gloucester since before the 14th century. ...

in 1806. The old bells were replaced by the bells from Saviours Church on Deane Road in 1974. Five new trebles were recast from the old bells by

John Taylor & Co John Taylor Bell Foundry (Loughborough) Limited, trading as John Taylor & Co and commonly known as Taylor's Bell Foundry, Taylor's of Loughborough, or simply Taylor's, is the world's largest working bell foundry. It is located in Loughborough, ...

and the tenor bell was retained and hung "dead" and is rung electrically when required. The tenor bell is inscribed, "I to the Chvrch the living call And to the grave doe svmmon all Henry Bagley made mee 1699". An organ built in 1795 was enlarged in 1852 and replaced in 1882 by a new one which reused some of the old pipes. The three-manual organ built by A. G. Hill in 1882, in a case decorated with stylised flowers and angels, was rebuilt in 2008 by Principal Pipe Organs of York. The organ has almost 3,000 internal pipes, the largest 16 feet long and the smallest half an inch.

Vicars of Bolton-le-Moors

The following is a list of the vicars since the

:Life of the priest
''Parish Magazine, June Issue 2008, page 6'', retrieved 24 March 2009 * 1560–1582: Edward Cockerell * 1582–1593: Alexander Smythe * 1594–1595: John Albright * 1595–1598: Zacharias Saunders * 1598–1625: Ellis Saunderson * 1625–1630: Robert Parke * 1630–1644: William Gregg * 1644–1657: John Harpur * 1657–1662: Richard Goodwin * 1662–1671: Robert Harpur * 1671–1673: Michael Stanford * 1673–1691: John Lever * 1691–1721: Peter Haddon * 1721–1737: Thomas Morrall * 1737–1789: Edward Whitehead * 1789–1793: Jeremiah Gilpin * 1793–1811: Thomas Bancroft * 1811–1817: John Brocklebank * 1817–1857: James Slade * 1857–1886: Henry Powell * 1887–1896: James Augustus Atkinson * 1896–1901: Edwyn Hoskyns * 1902–1909: Henry Henn * 1909–1922: Thomas Alfred Chapman * 1922–1930: Spencer Cecil Carpenter * 1930–1933: Spencer Hayward Elliot * 1933–1948: Walter John Havelock Davidson * 1948–1965: Richard Greville Norburn * 1965–1982: Harold Ormandy Fielding * 1983–1990: Alfred Christopher Hall * 1991–1998: Alan Wolstencroft * 1999–2007: Michael Joseph Williams * 2008–2017: Matthew Thompson * 2018–present: Christopher Andrew Bracegirdle

Directors of Music

*William Lonsdale c. 1809–25 *Witton Thomas c. 1825–40 * John Fawcett, BMus 1840–57 *John Aspinall 1857–64 *Joseph Varey 1865 *John H. L. Glover 1865–67 *Miss S. Warbreck 1867–69 *William Best 1869–89 *Walter J. Lancaster, BMus, FRCO, LRAM 1889–1947 *George Fisher, BMus, FRCO, LRAM 1947–52 *Arthur M. Stanier, LRAM, ARCO 1952–56 *P. A. S. Stevens, BSc, BMus 1957–58 *William Morgan, BA, FRCO 1959–86 *Kevin Morgan, BA, PhD, FRCO, LRAM 1986–96 *Martin Bussey, MA 1996–2000 *Stephen H. Carleston, MA, FRCO (Chm) 2000–09 *Michael J. Pain, MA, FRCO, LRAM, ARCM since 2009

Interior

File:The Main Door - Bolton Parish Church.jpg, Main door File:Altar and Reredos, Bolton Parish Church.jpg, Altar File:St Peters -The Chancel.jpg,

Chancel In church architecture, the chancel is the space around the altar, including the choir and the sanctuary (sometimes called the presbytery), at the liturgical east end of a traditional Christian church building. It may terminate in an apse. Ove ...

File:St Peters - view from The Chancel.jpg, Nave File:Stained Glass Window - Bolton Parish Church.jpg, Stained glass window File:Bolton Parish Church - Gravestone.jpg, Gravestone File:Bolton Parish Church - Floor tiles in the Chancel.jpg, Floor tiles in the chancel File:Bolton Parish Church - Decorated Organ Pipes.jpg, Decorated organ pipes

References

Citations

Bibliography

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bolton, St Peter's Church Grade II* listed churches in Greater Manchester Church of England church buildings in Greater Manchester Saint Peter's Church Churches completed in 1871 19th-century Church of England church buildings Church buildings by E. G. Paley Saint Peter's Church