Wolverhampton St Peter in 1817

Description from A Topographical History of Staffordshire by William Pitt (1817)

WOLVERHAMPTON ST PETER.

The old Church is a deanery annexed to Windsor, the Dean of Windsor being likewise Dean of Wolverhampton: the revenues of the deanery are held by lease at a reserved rent of £38 per annum, but are supposed to exceed that sum by £300. The service is performed by the Dean, a sacrist, and seven prebends: at the lower end of the chancel are sixteen stalls for the Dean, the prebends, sacrist, three curates, and four lay singing men: six boys have been added.

The Rev. Thomas Walker is the present sacrist or perpetual curate, who has held that situation since 1788. The prebends are: Kynvaston, Rev. Peter Thoroton; Fetherstone, Rev. Thomas Walker; Hilton, Rev. Dr. Muckleston; Willenhall, Rev. Robert Ellison; Monmore, Rev. Robert Fell; Wobaston, Rev. George Fieldhouse and Rev. W. Molineux; Hatherton, Hon. and Rev. Augustus Legge.

This Church was anciently dedicated to the Blessed Virgin Mary, but in the time of Henry III was altered and re-dedicated to St. Peter: it is pleasantly situated on a gravelly hill, and commands a fine prospect towards Tettenhall, Shropshire, and Wales. It is a handsome fabric of stone, with a fine embattled tower (40 yards high) of rich gothic architecture, and consists of a lofty nave, with two aisles, and a chancel. The north and south porches are of ancient stone-work: the nave is supported by five pointed arches resting on octagonal pillars. One of the most curious features of the church is the richly-sculptured stone pulpit, with a circular flight of steps, and a large well-executed figure of a lion at its base.

On the north side of the tower (in which are ten good bells), is a chapel, anciently called St. Catherine's, now Lane's chancel, and the cemetery of the Lanes, formerly of Bentley, which contains several monuments and inscriptions of that family: they have been recently repaired and beautified at the expense of John Lane, Esq. of Abbot's Bromley, in this county.

The great chancel was suffered to go to decay till Dr. Turner became Dean of Windsor, who expended £500 in repairing it. This chancel contains a full-length statue of brass, in honour of Admiral Sir Richard Leveson, who commanded against the Spanish Armada. Here is likewise a curious stone font, beautifully embellished with figures and flowers, and evidently of great antiquity.

Memorabilia:
In 1529, the Church was robbed, and the churchwardens went to a wise man.
1533. The high altar cost £95
1572. Seats first allowed to be built in the church.
Plott says, "in the church of Wolverhampton are seven bells
rung together in peal, which must needs be very unmusical"
Nov. 6, 1796, about two o'clock in the morning, a violent gust
of wind blew down the whole range of battlements on the south side
of the church, together with part of the south transept, and did
great damage in the neighbourhood.

In the church-yard, near the south porch, is a round column, about twenty feet in height, exhibiting a variety of rude carvings divided into compartments, containing a bird and beast looking back at each other, dragons with fore feet and long tails in lozenges, birds and roses, a band of Saxon leaves, beasts or griffins, and other grotesque representations: the whole is surmounted by a plain capital. There are similar monuments in Leek church-yard, at Checkley, Chebsey, and Draycot-in-the-Moors, but it is doubtful whether they are of Danish or Saxon construction.

Among the charitable donations recorded in the Church, is the following: "Sir Stephen Jennings, Alderman of London, born in this town, founded one free-school, and purchased the manor of Rushock, in the county of Worcester, now (1707) of the yearly value of £300 at least, for the perpetual maintaining of a schoolmaster and usher, the care and government of which he did leave to the Worshipful Company of Merchant Taylors, of London." Sir Stephen Jennings was Lord Mayor of London in the year 1508.