St Peter's Church is an

Anglican Anglicanism, also known as Episcopalianism in some countries, is a Western Christianity, Western Christian tradition which developed from the practices, liturgy, and identity of the Church of England following the English Reformation, in the ...

church in Riccarton,

Christchurch Christchurch (; ) is the largest city in the South Island and the List of cities in New Zealand, second-largest city by urban area population in New Zealand. Christchurch has an urban population of , and a metropolitan population of over hal ...

New Zealand New Zealand () is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and List of islands of New Zealand, over 600 smaller islands. It is the List of isla ...

. It is registered as Category II by

Heritage New Zealand Heritage New Zealand Pouhere Taonga (initially the National Historic Places Trust and then, from 1963 to 2014, the New Zealand Historic Places Trust; in ) is a Crown entity that advocates for the protection of Archaeology of New Zealand, ancest ...

History

The Parish of Riccarton was formed in 1855 when the Parish of Christchurch was subdivided. The graveyard in the grounds of St Peter's was used for burials before a church was constructed on the site. The first church on the site of St Peter's was a wooden church designed by

Benjamin Mountfort Benjamin Woolfield Mountfort (13 March 1825 – 15 March 1898) was an English emigrant to New Zealand, where he became one of the country's most prominent 19th-century architects. He was instrumental in shaping the city of Christchurch's uniqu ...

. The current stone church was built over 40 years in different stages. The first stone addition was the

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

. The chancel was built in 1876 and it was also designed by Mountfort. In 1900 the

transept A transept (with two semitransepts) is a transverse part of any building, which lies across the main body of the building. In cruciform ("cross-shaped") cruciform plan, churches, in particular within the Romanesque architecture, Romanesque a ...

s, additions to the nave and an organ chamber were added, again to the design of Mountfort. In 1928 the final part of the original wooden church was replaced with a new west end and a stone tower both designed by Cecil Wood.

Canterbury earthquakes and restoration

The church sustained damage during the September 2010 Christchurch earthquake and also in the

February 2011 Christchurch earthquake A major earthquake occurred in Christchurch on Tuesday 22 February 2011 at 12:51 p.m. New Zealand Daylight Time, local time (23:51 Coordinated Universal Time, UTC, 21 February). The () earthquake struck the Canterbury Region ...

. The architectural firm Tennent Brown were engaged to restore and restrengthen St Peter's. The church was restored and strengthened up to 100% of the national building standard and reopened in February 2021.

Burials

* George Ross (1829–1876), farmer and local politician * Sibella Ross (1840–1929), schoolteacher and businesswoman * Sibylla Maude (1862–1935), known as Nurse Maude

References

External links

Church website
{{DEFAULTSORT:Saint Peter's, Riccarton Churches in Christchurch Heritage New Zealand Category 2 historic places in the Canterbury Region 2011 Christchurch earthquake Listed churches in New Zealand 1850s churches in New Zealand Religious organizations established in 1855 Stone churches in New Zealand