Explore Religious Heritage Across Europe

In a tiny hamlet right on the Welsh border, is a very special church, black and white both inside and out, and wonderfully picturesque and rustic looking. There has been a place of Christian worship in Melverley for about a 1000 years. In 1141 Ordericus Vitalis mentions a ‘wooden chapel on the banks of the river above Shrewsbury'. In 1401 this church was burnt by the Welsh chieftain Owain Glyndwr. It was rebuilt in 1406 from local oak.

In mid Victorian days, interest in health and in travel coincided with the building of Harrogate around its new Spa and new railway station. Fine houses and streets began to spring up, and it was clear that another church should be built to meet the needs of a rising population. Mrs Mary Anne Fielde donated her house to be the Vicarage, and her garden for a church and a school to be built.

St Peter's was built in 1874 designed by well known Lancashire firm of Paley and Austin and won an award for its design as a ‘mountain chapel'. This Grade II* church was built with no aisle, and a tower vault divides the church from the chancel. A lychgate was added in 1914. Built on the site of an earlier chapel together they have served the community for nearly three centuries.

The most outstanding Norman church

St Peter's is a relatively new church, being built because the old parish church of St Andrew, only seating 190, was too small. It was consecrated in 1893 by Rt Revd Dr Edward King, Bishop of Lincoln.

An unusually complete Victorian interior with a breathtakingly elaborate chancel, featuring cusped and gilded roof rafters.

The beautiful church of St Peter in Great Haseley dates mostly from the 13th and 14th centuries and includes some fine Early English and Decorated features.

In what had been a promontory clifftop overlooking the north of the harbour and estuary of the River Wear, 60 hides of land were given by King Ecgfrith for Benedict Biscop to found the monastery of St Peter in the name of the Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury in 673 AD. This was the beginning of a new project a movement to bring learning, culture and the Christian religion to the north of Saxon Britain.

There was probably a church on this hilltop overlooking the River Exe in late Saxon times, but the first stone church was erected shortly after the Norman Conquest and consecrated in 1073. Very little remains of the Norman building. The church today is almost entirely a 15th century rebuilding, with tall Perpendicular windows making it spacious and light. The tower and chancel are 15th century, while the south aisle and Greenway Chapel are 16th century.

St Peter's was completed in 1879 to a design by GE Street as the founding mother church of Bournemouth. The building incorporates work by some of the finest Gothic Revival architects and artists, including Street, George Frederick Bodley, Ninian Comper, Arthur Blomfield and Edward Burne-Jones, with stained glass and frescoes by Clayton and Bell. The chancel has been described as 'one of the richest Gothic Revival interiors in England'.