St Peter's Church is a chapel to the west of

Tabley House Tabley House is an English country house in Tabley Inferior (Nether Tabley), some to the west of the town of Knutsford, Cheshire. The house is recorded in the National Heritage List for England as a designated Grade I listed building. It ...

near

Knutsford Knutsford () is a market town in the borough of Cheshire East, in Cheshire, England. Knutsford is south-west of Manchester, north-west of Macclesfield and 12.5 miles (20 km) south-east of Warrington. The population at the 2011 Census wa ...

Cheshire Cheshire ( ) is a ceremonial and historic county in North West England, bordered by Wales to the west, Merseyside and Greater Manchester to the north, Derbyshire to the east, and Staffordshire and Shropshire to the south. Cheshire's county t ...

, England. It 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, an ...

as a designated Grade I

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 ...

History

The chapel was originally built on an island in the lower mere called The Moat in 1675–78 beside

Tabley Old Hall The ruin of Tabley Old Hall (more properly known as Nether Tabley Old Hall) is on an island surrounded by a moat in the civil parish of Tabley Inferior, about to the west of Knutsford, Cheshire, England. The ruin is recorded in the National Her ...

by Sir Peter Leycester. The tower was added around 1720. In 1927 the chapel was moved to its present position because its foundations were being undermined by

brine Brine is a high-concentration solution of salt (NaCl) in water (H2O). In diverse contexts, ''brine'' may refer to the salt solutions ranging from about 3.5% (a typical concentration of seawater, on the lower end of that of solutions used for br ...

-pumping.

Architecture

Structure

The chapel is joined to the house by a passage. It is built in brick with stone dressings and has a stone slate roof. The plan consists of a west tower and a three-bay nave with an

ante-chapel The ante-chapel is that portion of a chapel which lies on the western side of the choir screen. In some of the colleges at Oxford and Cambridge the ante-chapel is carried north and south across the west end of the chapel, constituting a western ...

over which is a gallery. The tower is in three stages. The lowest stage has a two-light window above which is a

parapet A parapet is a barrier that is an extension of the wall at the edge of a roof, terrace, balcony, walkway or other structure. The word comes ultimately from the Italian ''parapetto'' (''parare'' 'to cover/defend' and ''petto'' 'chest/breast'). Whe ...

with stone

baluster A baluster is an upright support, often a vertical moulded shaft, square, or lathe-turned form found in stairways, parapets, and other architectural features. In furniture construction it is known as a spindle. Common materials used in its cons ...

s and ball

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 (geometry), apex of a d ...

s. The next stage is recessed and has a diagonal clock faces on three sides. The belfry stage above this has two-light louvred openings with stone surrounds. At the top is another parapet with stone balusters and ball finials.

Fittings and furniture

The ceiling is coved. The interior of the chapel is panelled and the stalls are arranged down the sides. The

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 ...

is octagonal and it has a

sounding board A sounding board, also known as a tester and abat-voix is a structure placed above and sometimes also behind a pulpit or other speaking platform that helps to project the sound of the speaker. It is usually made of wood. The structure may be spe ...

and an ancient

hourglass An hourglass (or sandglass, sand timer, sand clock or egg timer) is a device used to measure the passage of time. It comprises two glass bulbs connected vertically by a narrow neck that allows a regulated flow of a substance (historically sand) ...

. The

reredos A reredos ( , , ) is a large altarpiece, a screen, or decoration placed behind the altar in a church. It often includes religious images. The term ''reredos'' may also be used for similar structures, if elaborate, in secular architecture, for ex ...

was painted by Lady Leighton and carved by Countess Bathurst, one of her aunts. One of the windows contains Flemish 17th-century stained glass, and another window dated 1895 was designed by

Edward Burne-Jones Sir Edward Coley Burne-Jones, 1st Baronet, (; 28 August, 183317 June, 1898) was a British painter and designer associated with the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood which included Dante Gabriel Rossetti, John Millais, Ford Madox Brown and Holman Hun ...

and made by Morris & Co. In the ante-chapel is a war memorial to the tenants who died in the First World War which is made from panelling from the Old Hall. The organ was made in 1876 by Bryceson Brothers and Morten of London. The registers date from 1678 and contain records of the baptisms and weddings of the Leicester family and their tenants.

References

External links