St. Peter's Church, St. Albans

St Peter's Church, St Albans
St Peter's Church, St Albans
Denomination	Church of England
Churchmanship	Broad Church
Website	www.stpeterschurch.uk.com
History
Dedication	St. Peter
Administration
Parish	St Albans
Diocese	St Albans
Province	Canterbury
Clergy
Vicar(s)	The Revd Canon Mark Dearnley
Assistant	The Revd Jos Perris
Laity
Organist/Director of music	Nicholas Robinson
Organist(s)	Alexander Flood

St Peter's Church is a parish church in the Church of England. It is located in St Albans, England, to the north of the town centre.

It is believed, based upon the writing of Matthew Paris, to have been founded in AD 948 by Abbot Ulsinus of St Albans. There is some uncertainty about the dates other details in the writings of Paris, but there is little doubt that the church, together with St Stephen's and St Michael's churches, was built at about that time to receive pilgrims and to prepare them for their visit to the shrine of St Alban within St Albans Abbey. The three churches, all of which still exist as active places of Christian worship, stand on the three main roads into St Albans.

The original Anglo-Saxon structure would have been made of wood but nothing now remains of this. No records exist of St Peter's for nearly 200 years after its foundation. During the 13th century the church assumed the form which it retained until the early 19th century - a cruciform building with a central tower. Thomas Baskerfield's drawings of 1787 give an impression of what the church was like in its essentials for many centuries.

In the mid-12th century it was one of the 15 churches which, with St Albans Abbey, became exempt from the jurisdiction of the Bishop of Lincoln. It was then ruled by the Abbot of St Albans until the Dissolution of the Monasteries. After the Dissolution in 1539, the churches of St Albans became part of the Diocese of London until 1845 when Hertfordshire was transferred to the Diocese of Rochester. In 1877 the Diocese of St Albans was created and the old abbey church became the new cathedral.