New booklet sheds light on the 'magnificent' stained-glass windows of St Peter's Church in Scarborough

A feature of many old harbour towns is the large number of churches, chapels and other places of worship, spaces of spiritual comfort for those ‘who go down to the sea in ships’ experiencing the

mysteries and dangers of the deep, and for the families who waited anxiously at home.

Scarborough is no exception, though today many of those fine buildings have become bars and restaurants, or the crumbling nesting sites of seagulls.

When Scarborough’s Catholics assembled for the opening of St Peter’s church in July, 1858, they found the great nave roofed like a ship’s hull and the chancel ceiling painted with constellations that

would have been familiar to sea-faring folk in the skies above the bays.

The Apostle Peter, after whom the church was named, was himself a fisherman, so an appropriate patron saint.

Remarkably, the splendid ceremony was led, not by the local bishop but by Cardinal Wiseman, Archbishop of Westminster, likely escaping the ‘Great Stink’ in London that summer, when the Thames had turned into a noxious sewer.

No expense was spared on the church’s interior decorations, not least its magnificent stained-glass windows, which have had little attention in recent times.

Now a richly illustrated booklet on the windows has been produced by two parishioners, one researching and writing the text and the other taking the photographs and designing the lay-out.

When studied carefully, the windows turn out to be masterpieces of the Victorian era.

They are mostly from the Birmingham workshop of Hardman and Co, who worked with the architect Augustus Pugin on major projects like the Palace of Westminster.

Richly coloured and expressive in the style of the Gothic Revival, the majority are depictions of saints, many familiar, like St Patrick and St Francis, others less so, but often representative of the Christian history of the north east.

The 32-page booklet is designed as both a guided tour during a visit to the church, and as a souvenir of these works of art and devotion.

Their sale will go towards the cost of preserving these beautiful examples of Scarborough’s heritage for future generations.