Listed Building: CHURCH OF ST PETER (381956)

PORTLAND SY67SE GROVE ROAD, Grove 969-1/1/135 (North side) 21/09/78 Church of St Peter GV II* Former Anglican parish church, now chapel to Young Offender Institution. Consecrated August 1872. Designed by Capt. Du Cane, RE and built at cost of »8000. Portland ashlar, slate roofs. Cruciform unaisled plan with western narthex and bell cote, and trefoil-plan transepts and chancel, all in vigorous Lombardic Romanesque style. West front has lofty gabled bell cote on coped gable to kneelers over 8-foil wheel window in sunk panel to pointed moulded arch above lean-to narthex with raised copings and 7 arched windows behind screen of doubled colonnettes; at south end a raking buttress to left and pair of plank doors in moulded arch. Main body has lofty plinth with offsets, flat pilasters to sunk panels and continuous dwarf arcade to Lombard bands at eaves with moulded cornice and cast iron cavetto-mould gutter. Nave has 2+2+1 lights, and transepts 7 single lights; north transept also has central door under small arched light. Apse has blank panel adjoining transept, then 9 lights behind screen of paired colonnettes. Lean-to vestry in north-east corner has circular stack on square base, and a door to N. Interior: 3-bay nave with tied arch-braced scissor trusses and king post to stone corbels. Unplastered walls. Windows in deep embrasures, roll- mould surround stopped to rosettes and steep sloping cill. Plain glass except centre S, replacing one damaged by bombing in 1941, in memory of Bandmaster J. Tyson and men of the Dorset Regiment killed in action. West wheel window series of angels and central monogram IHS. In transepts a varied version of the nave trusses. Chancel on 2+2+1 steps, sanctuary with series of deep-set rectangular panels flanking central 4-bay reredos with Evangelists in mosaic, under windows with paired colonnettes, and blank panels with names of Regiments serving at The Verne from 1873 to 1937. Boarded celure, simple hammer-beam trusses. Area of black and white mosaic under wooden altar table. Stained glass mainly C20. To left and right of chancel arch are arched recesses containing Decalogue, Lord's Prayer, and Creed; organ in south transept, stone octagonal pulpit, and unusual hexagonal base to stone lectern. Plain pine pews. In narthex some black and white mosaic, plank ceiling. As with many of the buildings on Portland, much of the work is reputed to have been done by convicts from the prison, and the mosaic at St. Peter's is known to have been the work of Constance Kent, who was serving a life sentence in Parkhurst prison; she was released, and died at the age of 100 in 1940. (Buildings of England: Pevsner N and Newman J: Dorset: London: 1972-1989: 343). Listing NGR: SY6988972581

Record last edited

Nov 1 2006 5:56PM