Something About Saint Peter's Church, Bristol

Come, let us wipe its face again!

I mentioned the church of the faceless images recently and how Bristol resident Bob Canton provided Bellairsia staff with pictures of a particular roofless church in Bristol.

This church is Saint Peter's in Castle Park, completed in the 12 Century. According to tradition the building narrowly escaped destruction during the English Civil War. In 1643, the Roundhead Governor of Bristol Castle, Nathaniel Fiennes, is said to have ordered the demolition of both the nearby Saint Peter's and Saint Philip's churches to prevent the besieging Cavaliers from taking up positions in them. It is claimed only the arrival of Prince Rupert of the Rhine, Duke of Cumberland, with a strong army of 20,000 Royalist soldiers stopped this action.

After all that, the church was bombed during the Bristol Blitz of Nov. 1940. The ruined church still stands with the surrounding area transformed into Castle Park.

The now-ruined building is interesting to compare to Bellairs’s text:

[Johnny and Fergie] marched through the doorless arch. Crumbling walls rose on both sides, and empty pointed windows stared down at them. Grass grew in cracks between the stones of the floor.

Canton’s photographs show the shell of the former building with gaping holes where stained-glass windows should be and the grass between the slabs at the altar site. Granted, one could find similar remains of other churches or abbeys partially destroyed by King Henry VIII, WWII, or points in-between.